


i'm all soft shapes (and lines)

by Windybird



Series: Bite the Hand [2]
Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Mommy Issues, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Sloppy Makeouts, Strong Female Characters, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Underage Drinking, jock meets nerd meets queen bee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 71,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22707349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windybird/pseuds/Windybird
Summary: “Ditching class is strictly prohibited, Ms. Swan,” says a deep voice from behind me, and my eyes fly open. I register two things when I finally take in who’s spoken: number one, that it’s not Coach Pornstache, thankfully, and number two, that it’s the boy that they created Sports Illustrated magazine for. He’s attractive to the point of absurdity, all rippling muscles and long legs and thick, curly dark hair. When he smiles at me, two perfect dimples form in his cheeks.“You’re not Coach Pornstache,” I say, stupidly, and he lets out a loud, barking laugh.˚ ˚ ˚ ˚AU in which Bella is a raging bisexual who isn't quite sure what she's going to do about her newfound obsessions with Rosalie Hale and Emmett Cullen.
Relationships: Bella Swan & Charlie Swan, Bella Swan & Renee Dwyer, Emmett Cullen/Bella Swan, Emmett Cullen/Bella Swan/Rosalie Hale, Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale, Rosalie Hale/Bella Swan
Series: Bite the Hand [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633195
Comments: 476
Kudos: 903





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> y'all. Y'ALL. i have been trying and trying to update swallow the sound for literal months before I realized that the only way to reignite my love for alice/bella/jasper is to thrust bella in the middle of another vampire sandwich a la rosalie/bella/emmett. hope u enjoy this AU of an AU!

Phil gave Mom a surprisingly beautiful eulogy.

I can still remember bits and pieces from it, halfway on the flight to Forks. The funeral home was packed, with both his friends and Mom’s, and I’m pretty sure there was not a single dry eye in the audience when Phil went up to the podium and spoke. He was dressed in a black button-up and suit jacket, one that made me realize why his usual choice of wardrobe consisted mostly of khakis and a novelty T-shirt; black just made him look sallow and washed-out.

Still, as I looked up at him there, his eyes welling with tears, the bruises beneath evidence enough that he hadn’t slept properly for the past several days, I felt that this was the first time I’d ever truly seen him. When Mom wasn’t buried seven feet under, her role with the two of us was primarily one of being a buffer. It wasn’t that I didn’t get along with him- more to do with the fact that I hadn’t really had a dad for several years by that point (Charlie, who I had seen last at age fourteen or fifteen, didn’t really count), and I wasn’t sure how to start now.

Maybe if she hadn’t died when she did, it would’ve gotten better- at a glacial pace, undoubtedly, but still better. I would’ve yelled at him for not leaving the toilet seat down after he went to the bathroom, and he would’ve gotten pissed at me for coming home after curfew or taking too long in the shower, and it would’ve been just as it was supposed to.

The rabbi who conducted the service was pretty patient with him, though, all things considered; taught him how to recite Kaddish properly, even though Phil’s WASP background ensured that he stressed all the wrong syllables and stumbled over words at times. He’d looked at me a few times during it, but I was just as lost as he was; Mom and I hadn’t celebrated any holiday save Thanksgiving since I was a kid, and I felt uncomfortable calling myself religious in any capacity. The Hebowitz Funeral Home made me feel like both an intruder and a fraud in that regard, though I supposed that was more Mom’s fault than anything else. Still, Mom had said in her note that she wanted a Jewish funeral, and so a Jewish funeral she got. At least her mother seemed happy about it.

I, meanwhile, had been so comatose during the entire thing, that I barely registered that Phil was speaking until I realized that everyone sitting beside me was full-on sobbing, the tears streaming down their faces with no respite. But when it finally registered, I allowed myself to come back to my body a little, looking up at his stubbled face, watching his lips move almost hypnotically as he spoke.

“…you feel like anything was possible,” he was saying. “Like you could take on the entire world and win. I remember the day my father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I was ready to break down in tears and cry like a little boy-“ that got a few chuckles from the bereaved audience- “but Renee looked at me, her face more determined than I’d ever seen her look, and simply said, ‘We’re going to get through this. You and me.’ You and me, she said, like we were a single unit, even though we’d only started dating a few months before. That was just the kind of woman she was. A kind woman.”

A particularly distraught woman I vaguely recognized as Mom’s coworker let out a wail at the last syllable.

When he went down, he suggested in a hoarse voice that I go up there and say something. I felt myself respond automatically; my legs were already carrying me up to the front of the room, even as my lips were forming the word “No.” When I finally got up there, I saw a sea of pale, anguished faces staring back at me, and I felt the breath leave my body in one fell whoosh.

I forced myself to speak after an uncomfortably long amount of time had passed.

“We stopped at McDonald’s on the way here,” I began, which surprised a chuckle out of the audience. “And because the drive-thru was completely backed up, which is a thing that happens when there’s only one McDonald’s in your entire neighborhood, we had to park the car and go inside. The girl behind the counter complimented me on my dress and asked what the occasion was for, and I didn’t feel like lying today, so I said, ‘My mom is dead, and we’re on our way to her funeral right now.’ And then she burst into tears.”

Phil’s expression was indescribable, down in the audience. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, as though he wanted to stop me but didn’t know how, and I had to suppress the most inappropriate smile of my life as I continued speaking.

“It was pretty annoying, I’m not going to lie. _I_ was the one who should’ve been in tears, not _her_ , but there was a line forming behind us and I knew I had to say something to get her to stop. But nothing came to mind. I stood there, and she stood behind the counter, crying so hard I was afraid she would rupture something, and then I finally said, ‘Don’t worry, it was bound to happen sooner or later.’ Like Mom got cancer, or heart disease, or something irreversible and blameless. But it wasn’t. And she was entirely to blame. And I will never forgive her.”

The audience murmured unhappily. I watched Phil unconsciously lower himself in his seat, like a kid in class who didn’t want the teacher to call on him.

“I have a joke for you guys,” I said, feeling almost high off my own detachment. “What’s the difference between a deadly car crash- glass everywhere, engines on fire-, and my mom? One’s a total wreck that was bound to explode sooner or later, and the other’s a deadly car crash.”

Phil’s eulogy was better received than mine, but I like mine better.

* * *

Charlie doesn’t have much to say when he picks me up from the airport.

His eyes are red-rimmed, enough that I can tell he’s been crying for hours before I arrived, and I’m not sure why it makes me so uncomfortable. True, he and Mom had been divorced much longer than they were together, but she was still his wife. Even if she was difficult and stubborn as anything.

He wraps me up in a hug when he sees me, one that I am almost 99.9% positive he would never attempt had it not been for the fact that Mom’s funeral was a day ago. He doesn’t even comment on the hair, which is nice, since I know it’s terribly choppy and asymmetrical and will unquestionably bring me side-eyes at school tomorrow. _That’s what you get for cutting it with dull scissors_ , I tell myself, but it’s not like I care either way.

It's funny. I used to say shit like that all the time- that I didn’t care about what other people thought, least of all disaffected high school students like myself-, but it’s only now that the statement has ever been true. As I watch the trees blur past from Charlie’s police cruiser- again, something that I know I would’ve cared far more about had it not been for the fact that I was unable to muster the energy to care about anything-, I think about how Phil had refused to look at me when he drove me to the airport, still smarting over my eulogy for Mom, and how I didn’t even lift my hand to wave goodbye before he screeched out of the parking lot. How I’m probably never going to see him again in my life, and how surprisingly okay I am with the notion.

I’m okay with a lot of things now, it seems. Okay with the fact that Charlie still has embarrassing photos of me resting on the top of the fireplace in the living room. Okay with the fact that there’s only one bathroom that he and I are going to have to share for the next ten months or so. Okay with the fact that I have three suitcases to unpack, which contain all of my worldly possessions. Okay with the fact that my worldly possessions are not much to speak of.

Charlie hovers in the threshold of my room as I mechanically begin unzipping my things and folding them on my bed. His face is pained, and though I register the fact that I’m unquestionably the one who’s causing him pain, I’m not sure how to fix it.

“Bella,” he says, his voice rough and raw. “If you- if you ever want to talk about this with me, or-“

“No thanks.”

“But-“

“Dad.”

I can’t even bring myself to be shamefaced when he gives me a terribly pathetic nod and shuffles out of my room, no doubt in search of a bottle of whiskey for which to drown his sorrows.

That reminds me. I still have a pack of cigarettes in my pocket- one of Mom’s, as it is. I fish out a cig and shuffle through my carry-on bag for my lighter, walking to my window and pushing it open as I let a stream of smoke escape from the side of my mouth. It’s the first time I’ve ever smoked, and I can’t help but cough as the smoke wafts out into the open air, but the second drag goes down more smoothly.

I’m still in shock. I know it. But knowing it and caring about it are two distinct things. I’ll be in trouble when I actually register the fact that Mom- loveable, harebrained Mom- is dead and gone from this world forever, but for now, I feel perfectly content perching myself on the sill of my open window, the smoke burning pleasantly down my throat as I look down at my hand.

Charlie hadn’t commented on the busted-up knuckles, but I’m sure that’s just because he hadn’t seen them beneath the sleeves of my jacket. The back of my hand is still an angry, pulsating red, but I like how it looks. I feel like it gives me a sort of “don’t-fuck-with-me-vibe”- that and the hair that looks like I cut it off with rusty garden shears, which probably would’ve been easier to wield than the childproof scissors I used. One side is longer than the other by several inches, but I’m not cutting it. I think it’s funny, as much as anything can be funny right now.

Charlie didn’t want me to go to school tomorrow- he argued on the phone with Phil all night long, that it was too much for me to handle, that Mom had _just_ died and there was no way in hell he would allow me to go to a high-stress environment when I needed to rest-, but I grabbed the phone from Phil and told Charlie that if I didn’t go to school tomorrow, I’d find the nearest bridge and hurl myself off instead, so I won that argument, albeit with extreme reluctance on Charlie’s part.

It's probably really stupid of me to go to school, honestly, but I do need the distraction. I’m probably not going to jump off a bridge if I don’t, but I’ll lie in bed, comatose and numb, as I have for the past 168 hours, and that sounds more unappealing than dealing with gross fish sticks from the cafeteria. It’s so bizarre to me to think that if Mom and Charlie had never been divorced, I would’ve probably lived here my whole life, known all whopping 358 students who attended, probably be forced to join one of the cliques by sheer necessity to not eat lunch in the bathroom, but thinking about having to socialize with other people makes my stomach turn.

As luck would have it, word of the circumstances involving my move to Forks has spread. The second Dad pulls up in his police cruiser and wishes me a good day, I can sense at least a dozen eyes glued to my back. When I look up, making accidental eye contact with a freshman girl, she lets out an honest-to-God squeak, and I blink. As I look down at myself, I realize that the flannel-and-jeans ensemble I’d hurriedly thrown on that morning was more heroin chic than inconspicuous (it was either heroin chic or school shooter chic, and I would’ve much rather gone with heroin chic). It probably doesn’t help that the bags under my eyes have developed bags under themselves.

The secretary’s office is almost uncomfortably warm as I walk in, a clock hanging on the wall above the door ticking irritatingly as I wait for the secretary to pull up my schedule. She, like the freshman girl, seems a little afraid of me, but it’s the watery, creased blue eyes tentatively peeking up at me now that fills me with a little remorse. Ms. Cope seems motherly- what a mother should probably be like, anyway-, and I don’t enjoy the fact that she probably thinks I popped Vicodin in the bathroom before arriving here.

Still, she makes an effort to smile as she hands me my schedule.

“Here you go, honey,” she says, voice tremulous. “Have a good first day.”

 _If by ‘good’ you mean ‘please don’t cut yourself with a filthy razor in between passing periods,’ I’ll try to,_ I snark, before another tiny shiver of remorse passes through me. It’s not Ms. Cope’s fault Mom is dead and my innate reaction is to try to be the fifth member of MCR.

“Thanks,” I say, making sure to imbue warmth in that one syllable. She smiles back, surprised and pleased, and I leave the office feeling a little lighter than I thought I would.

That is, until I realize what I have first on my schedule.

“P.E.’s an underclassmen class,” I mutter under my breath, rubbing my eyes to make sure they- like the rest of me- haven’t gone totally off-kilter. Nope. P.E.’s still terribly present at the top of my schedule, and with no small amount of self-hatred, I realize why. I failed last semester P.E. back in Phoenix because I couldn’t do a single push-up, and between that and collapsing on my knees during the PACER test, I flunked the entire class. I told Mom I’d just deal with it this year, but that was before she died and I had to relocate to a high school who probably didn’t hire coaches that they grabbed out of the nearest sporting goods store.

That’s how I end up hiding behind the bleachers while the rest of Coach Miller’s first period class does laps around the track. His stern brow and pornstache reaffirmed my horrifying suspicions that he was actually going to force us to make an effort, and between his passionate shouting at us for not holding up our planks correctly, and being surrounded by fourteen-year-olds who looked like they pissed their P.E. shorts and were trying desperately hard not to let anybody know about it, I cursed myself for not taking the easy route and staying home like Charlie wanted me to.

Hence the whole “hiding under the bleachers” thing. If Coach Pornstache wants to chew me out afterwards, he can be my guest; I’ll play the dead mom card and he’ll back off my case for the rest of the semester, if not the entire school year. I lean against the steel poles of the bleacher and sigh. This is officially the worst first day of school anybody has ever had in the history of institutionalized American high schools.

“Ditching class is strictly prohibited, Ms. Swan,” says a deep voice from behind me, and my eyes fly open. I register two things when I finally take in who’s spoken: number one, that it’s not Coach Pornstache, thankfully, and number two, that it’s the boy that they created Sports Illustrated magazine for. He’s attractive to the point of absurdity, all rippling muscles and long legs and thick, curly dark hair. When he smiles at me, two perfect dimples form in his cheeks.

“You’re not Coach Pornstache,” I say, stupidly, and he lets out a loud, barking laugh.

“Oh, that’s clever,” he says, taking a few steps closer. I realize, with a jolt, just how tall he is as he finally comes to stop in front of me. He towers over me by at least a head, but though he should be intimidating by all rights, his smile is so disarming that I feel it almost physically landing in my chest like a close-fisted punch. “But I like to think I’m a little more attractive than a guy who has a special comb for his facial hair.”

“Seriously?”

“Would I lie about something so serious as Coach Miller’s pornstache?” He asks innocently, and I feel the muscles in my cheek twitching. It takes me a second to realize that it’s because I’m suppressing a smile.

“I’m Emmett,” he says abruptly, holding his hand out for me to shake. I take it suspiciously, expecting to find an electric buzzer concealed in his palm, but there’s nothing but the shockingly cool touch of his skin against mine, shaking my hand vigorously. I can feel the strength behind his handshake, all the way down to my bones. “Emmett Cullen. And you’re the new girl that everyone’s so terrified of.”

“It’s only first period,” I say, letting go of his hand a little too quickly to be considered polite. “I don’t know how the hell people are already afraid of me.”

“Probably because you look like you’ll bite somebody’s hand off if they so much as address you,” Emmett supplies cheerfully, and I cross my arms against my chest in a way I tell myself totally isn’t defensive.

“You’re not in this class,” I say, purposefully ignoring his comment. He grins.

“Free period,” he tells me, leaning against the support beam opposite mine. “Well, technically it’s a TA period, but Ms. Wexler doesn’t mind. Besides, I think it’s funny watching all the freshies sweat their butts off around the track, don’t you?”

“Not when I’m part of the class, no,” I say, looking away. He’s gorgeous, of course, and ordinarily I’d be tongue-tied and flustered around him, but I wish he would go away now. I want to lay down in the grass and stare up at the bottom of the bleachers, and I can’t do that in the presence of somebody who is so obviously the captain of some sort of sports team, both on and off campus.

“Oh, come on,” Emmett wheedles. “You think it’s funny. Just a little bit.”

“Nope.”

“Yeah, you do. C’mon, I know you’re trying not to smile-“

“My mom just died,” I say, watching the smile on his face drop immediately, and I feel a vicious sort of satisfaction. “And so I’d appreciate it if you’d let me hide out from Coach Pornstache in peace.”

Emmett holds up his hands in a mock-surrender.

“Got it,” he says, voice carefully neutral. “Sorry about your mom.”

As I watch him leave, I realize that my nails have dug into the meat of my palms. Hard enough to draw blood.

* * *

The rest of the day proves to be just as long and arduous.

I seem to be wearing an anti-people repellant all over me, because while I attract stares from both student and faculty alike, both seem to avoid me as much as possible. In a small town like this, it’s impossible not to have people flock to you- they’ve known the same people since kindergarten, so it’s only natural that they’ll be curious about the new girl. At least curious enough to ask her a few questions.

But not a single person addresses me throughout the day. Not in English, not in chemistry (which I switched out of biology for, though I knew perfectly well that I would suck at both), not even in my AP Government class, where everyone seems to be made of the same extroverted, almost theatrical ilk. Not a single soul asks me to sit with them at lunch- not until the last period before lunch, where a curly-haired girl named Jessica bravely asks me if I want to sit with her and her friends.

I accept, more out of dull curiosity than not wanting to sit by myself, and follow her dutifully to the cafeteria, where she introduces me to a few of her friends whose names I immediately forget. They seem almost afraid to look at me, at least until I admit (thanks to Jessica’s incessant questioning) that I draw in my free time. After that, Eric from yearbook begs me to draw something for the edition coming out this week, and a fishy-eyed girl named Lauren all but demands that I draw something for her, so that she has something to present in art class this week.

I ignore them, letting my eyes drift across the cafeteria. Freshmen huddled in one corner, theater kids huddled in the other… and then there’s a group of people to whom the word “huddle” is as foreign to them as ancient Sanskrit, for all the presence they take up in the room. I can’t help but gawk, and from Mike Newton’s small smirk out of the corner of my eye, I can tell this is a regular occurrence.

Emmett’s there, because of course he is. He somehow looks just as beautiful in the awful lighting of the cafeteria, as do the rest of his table companions. There’s a girl with spiky black hair sitting beside him, a boy with longish honey-blonde hair with his arm slung across her slim shoulders, and a boy with tousled hair and thick brows murmuring something low to the two of them.

But my attention is immediately arrested by the girl sitting next to Emmett. She is, inarguably, the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever laid eyes on. Her long blonde hair cascades down her shoulders, down the swell of her breasts ( _don’t look, don’t look)_ in sinfully soft waves. I can tell that she’s tall, even when she’s sitting; perhaps as tall as Emmett, who’s watching me stare at her with a smirk on his lips.

I jolt when I realize that he’s looking at me, immediately glancing away.

“They’re the Cullens,” Jessica says blithely, oblivious to my discomfort. “The little black-haired girl is Alice, and the boys sitting beside her are Jasper and Edward. The snobby blonde one is Rosalie, and the boy next to her is Emmett. They’re Dr. Cullen’s foster kids, but they’re all totally screwing like bunnies on the down-low.”

“I know Emmett,” I admit, and the entire table draws in a low intake of breath that seems a little much.

“How?” Jessica demands, wide-eyed, and I shrug.

“He introduced himself to me in first period,” I tell her, shrugging. “He seemed nice. And a little annoying.”

Eric lets out a hushed, awed laugh from beside me.

“I’m pretty sure you’re the first person to talk to Emmett Cullen all semester long,” he says.

“Or any of them,” Angela Webber adds, delicately perched on top of the table with her binders balanced in their lap. “They kind of keep to themselves.”

“Guess they read Flowers in the Attic and decide to base their personalities off of that,” I say, cringing when I realize how bitter I sound. “Are they all seniors?”

“Rosalie, Jasper, and Emmett are,” Angela explains, “but Edward and Alice are juniors.”

“Weird,” I mutter, shaking my head.

“Why?”

“Because they all look like college students,” I say, shaking my head. Then, more frustrated than I intended, I added, “How are they all so _hot?_ I can’t detect a single pore between them. If you’re going to be in high school, you better play the fucking part and look like the ugly duckling everyone expects you to be.”

“Projecting much?” Lauren asks, snide as anything, and I consider punching her in the face before I realize it probably wouldn’t look too good to get into a fight so early in my enrollment.

“Wow,” I say, in as scathing a tone as I can manage. “I literally feel like keeling over and dying because I know I’ll bear the scars of your remarkably witty comeback for life.”

“Oh, so kind of like your mom, then?”

The entire table hushes. I debate the pros and cons of punching her in the face over and over again until it resembles a pale pink slab of meat more than it does human features, but decide that I don’t want to give Charlie a heart attack so early in my enrollment.

Instead, I unzip my backpack, yank out my sketchbook, and hastily draw a crude sketch of Lauren’s face being coated by the viscous cum of an explicitly hairy, veiny dick before ripping it out and handing it to her. I make my escape quickly- knowing on an instinctive level I will definitely not be invited back to sit with Jessica and her friends-, but I can still hear the scandalized, affronted gasps behind me. And, above that, soft laughter following me from across the room.

I finish the rest of my lunch in the bathroom, which isn't as disgusting as I'd dreaded, even if there are sponged-up toilet paper wads sticking to the bathroom ceiling, and a worrisome stain splattered across the toilet seat I'm crouched on top of. Aside from that, it's fairly quiet and smells only faintly of week-old shit, and nobody comes in until the bell rings for fifth period. Thank God for small miracles.


	2. Chapter 2

Charlie has enough sense to not ask me how school went when he sees the look on my face, but I can sense him sneaking glances at me as we drive back home in the police cruiser. I idly draw squiggly lines in the condensation on the car windows, and then _Help Me!!!_ until Charlie looks over and frowns disapprovingly.

There. Managed to elicit a normal, parental response out of my bereaved father. Maybe today isn't totally unsalvageable after all.

“I’m sorry I have to drive you around in this,” Charlie says suddenly, and I look over at him, eyebrows raised.

“It’s fine, Dad,” I say, and it really is. Now that I’ve gotten a taste of what school’s going to be like for the next several months or so, I can safely say that I could not give less of a crap what people think when they see Charlie in his police cruiser and me sitting beside him in the front seat. Better than the back, at any rate. “Not like I was going to be prom queen whether I showed up in the cruiser or in a silver Volvo.”

“Did something happen at school?” He asks, concerned now, and I silently curse myself as I shake my head fervently.

“Nope. Everything was totally peachy.”

He looks dubious, but thankfully doesn’t press the subject. Instead, he says, “Well, I’ve been meaning to get you a new car for a while. I mean, not ‘new-new’, but decently built, and working just fine. Billy Black and his son’s bringing it over today.”

“Oh. Thanks.” I remember Billy, mostly for the fact that his face always reminded me of tanned leather as a child. I was fascinated by the rolls in them, the wrinkles that didn’t make him look old more than he looked wise. That was, until he and Charlie started up with their dad jokes. “How is he? How’s his son- um, Jared?”

“Jacob,” Charlie corrects. “They’re doing alright. Billy wanted me to tell you in advance how sorry he is to hear about R- about your mother’s passing.”

A lump forms in my throat.

“Cool,” I say, for lack of anything better to say. “Awesome.”

The rest of the ride home is silent and awkward. I shoulder my backpack immediately and slip inside the house before Charlie can try to get me to talk to him more about it. I know he means well, and I know that a better daughter would probably try to comfort him with his own pain from Mom’s death, but I think I’ve come to the realization, over the past week and a half, that I’m not a very good daughter.

That thought clings to me as I toss my clothes onto the floor and turn the shower faucet on. Charlie’s plumbing is pretty faulty, so it takes a minute for the water to warm while I stand hopping toe-to-toe in the freezing cold of the bathroom. I try to avoid looking in the mirror, but it’s impossible not to see the thin red lines running up the pale skin of my arms, or the angry bruising of my knuckles. I did, after all, put my hand through the mirror back home. Seven years’ bad luck for me- not that I needed more bad luck.

I stay in the shower for a long time, despite the fact that the cuts and the bruising are now pulsating in tandem. My mind goes blank, for the most part, though every so often it drifts back to Emmett and his family. All so perfect, it’s not hard to imagine that nobody tried to speak with them until now. And I wasn’t even the one who approached Emmett- he approached _me_ for whatever reason. I’m sure Rosalie wasn’t too happy about that; when her eyes briefly flickered to my face as I was gawking stupidly at them all, her nose wrinkled just the slightest bit, as though she could smell me from across the room- and I smelled like the girls’ bathroom well before I finished my lunch in there.

I let my mind rest on them, because the alternative is thinking about Mom, and I don’t want to do that when I’m so close to another mirror to potentially break with my own fists. I stay in there for so long, the water cascading down my shoulders and back, that I only barely hear the sound of a car chugging up our driveway.

Charlie and Billy are speaking in loud, smiling voices by the time I finally emerge from the shower, sweater and jeans sticking uncomfortably to my wet skin as I walk downstairs. There’s Billy, and aside from a few extra wrinkles and a streak of gray in his hair, he looks the same as ever. Jacob stands beside him, looking oddly shy for a boy pressing six feet and counting.

“Bella Swan,” Billy says, a broad smile on his face that slowly fades into a look of introspection. “How are you, kid?”

“Fine,” I say quickly. The elephant in the room huffs at me. “You guys staying for the, uh, game?”

I have literally no idea what I’m talking about, and Jacob Black notices immediately.

“’The game,’” He repeats, a wry smile on his face. “Is this Patty Cake or Slide Slide Slipper Slide we’re talking about here?”

“Neither,” I shoot back. “I was thinking more along the lines of King Kong Leprechaun.”

Billy and Charlie watch our repartee with twin looks of bafflement on their faces. Jacob grins at me, and I surprise myself by grinning back. It feels weird to smile when I’ve spent the past week sobbing so hard that the corners of my mouth now pull down automatically, but the crinkle of his eyes seems worth the immediate guilt that courses through me, as if by me smiling, I’m desecrating Mom’s name.

“The car’s outside if you want to take it for a spin,” Billy says, eyes trained on my face. “Jacob’s been fixing it up for a while.”

“It wasn’t all me,” Jacob mumbles, a flush spreading across his russet skin. “Dad helped too.”

Billy shrugs, neither willing to take credit nor deny it, before he tosses me the keys. I just barely manage to grab it before it hits the ground.

“You coming?” I ask Jacob, and he instinctively looks over at Billy for permission before jerking his head back, his flush getting deeper. I bite the inside of my cheek to avoid smiling wider; though he’s taller than me by a good foot, his arms and legs already showing more definition than is fair on a fifteen-year-old boy, he’s still so much like a kid. He’s only two years younger than me, but I already can’t remember what that feels like.

“Go ahead,” Billy says with a shit-eating grin, catching the look Jacob gives him. “Just make sure you two don’t get into any trouble with the cops for driving with a minor in the passenger seat.”

“How about it, Dad?” I ask, widening my eyes innocently as I turn to Charlie. “Are you going to arrest me?”

Charlie gives me a once-over, and though his voice is playful when he speaks, it’s obvious he’s bemused by my mood whiplash. My knuckles are still obviously bruised, my hair still obviously messed-up from my manic chopping, and yet here I am, joking around with him like we’ve done it for years. I don’t really have an answer to give him; I’m desperate to get out of the house, and Jacob seems nice enough that I can ignore the perpetual soul-crushing fact that my mother is dead and gone forever, to be able to drive us around safely.

“I think I’ll wait until you’ve committed an actual felony,” Charlie says decisively. Then, with a worried crease between his brows, he adds, “ _That_ wasn’t an invitation, by the way.”

I can feel his eyes on my back as Jacob and I walk out the door. I know that he’s hoping we’ll hit it off, maybe even enough to break me out of the funk of Mom’s death at least for a little while, but the first few minutes Jacob and I spend in the truck together is punctuated by awkward silences as I reverse out of the driveway, and I know immediately that Billy told him about what happened with Mom.

I fiddle with the radio as we drive past the small collection of shops grandly referred to as Forks’ “mall,” and land on a familiar song. It turns out that Jacob and I both have an embarrassing affinity for OutKast, and so, in unspoken agreement, we proceed to sing Ms. Jackson- with me doing the chorus and him doing the rap parts- until the music switches to Natasha Bedingfield, at which point we both realize we also have an embarrassing affinity for mainstream pop songs as well.

Jacob’s eyes screw shut as he howls with laughter at my awful rendition of Unwritten, and because the truck is squeaky clean on the inside, I can’t find anything to throw at him. I pull over on the side of the road to untie my shoe and lob that at him, but there’s still tears of mirth leaking out of his eyes as he dodges my blow.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, rubbing a hand over his face. “It’s just, the way your voice cracked-“

“ _I’m_ not the fifteen-year-old boy here,” I tell him, slumping back in my seat and crossing my arms over my chest in a way I know will set him off again. “I’m sorry we can’t all have the music prowess of Canadian singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield, Jacob.”

“Me too,” Jacob says, leaning back against his seat with a sigh. Something catches his eye in the distance, and he sits up a little, head tilting to the left like a curious puppy.

“Isn’t that your high school?” He asks, pointing, and with a groan, I realize he’s right. Just my luck that we stopped right near the back entrance of school. Even from this angle, with the tall trees obscuring most of the main building, it looks like a prison, all grey and squat.

“Unfortunately,” I mutter, and Jacob turns that curious look on me. I'm surprised by how effective it is; with his wide eyes and eager expression, he could ask me anything and I'd probably tell him all that he wanted to know. 

“You don’t like it?” He asks, eyebrows raising in surprise. “Has to be better than mine, at least. We have one single math teacher teaching two-and-a-half dozen kids both geometry, Algebra 2, and physics in the span of a day, for all six periods.”

“Ouch.”

“Yep.”

“It’s not so much the teachers more than it is the students,” I admit, looking out the window so I don’t have to look at Jacob. “They’re so… cliquey, I guess. It sounds contradictory, but my old high school was so big that we literally _couldn’t_ have cliques.”

“No, that makes sense,” Jacob says thoughtfully. “Small town kids are the worst, because not only do they feel this sense of, like, inadequacy for living in a small town, but they’ve also known everyone in their graduating class-“

“Since kindergarten,” I say, finishing for him. “Yeah, I know. I had the same thought my first day there. I can see how it’d make people go insane, but at the same time, making digs at the new kid’s dead mom isn’t something I was planning to deal with on my first day, you know?”

Jacob’s eyes practically boggle out of his head.

“Somebody made fun of your _dead mom?”_ He asks, and I can’t help but feel the tiniest sliver of satisfaction at the affront in his voice, clear as day. He twists around in his seat to face me full-on, his eyes dark and serious as they bore into my face. “Do I have to beat up anybody?”

“Hey, if you want to take on Lauren Mallory, be my guest,” I say, only partially joking. “I’d offer to hold and you punch, but I’m pretty sure this is the only high school for miles around, and no offense, but I don’t think this truck could handle the commute to Port Angeles High every day.”

“You could always come to the rez,” Jacob offers half-heartedly. “Only half of the senior class from last year dropped out before graduation, instead of three-quarters from two years ago. Progress, right?”

“Wow. Is it that bad?” I can’t help but feel a little guilty for complaining about school, if my only problem is that a girl with some serious internalized misogyny is taking offense to my sudden appearance in the Forks graduating class of 2005. It’s not my only problem, of course- there’s still the fact that all the freshmen in my gym class cower back in fear when they think I’m looking at them-, but it’s definitely up there.

Jacob thinks about it for a few seconds.

“It’s pretty bad, but…” He trails off, shrugging. “Well, if you manage to convince the Washington school board to give a shit about rez kids, like, at all, I'd be in your debt."

“Man,” I say, unsure what I could possibly say to make things better. “I’m really sorry, Jacob.”

“Hey, don’t apologize. I’m not the one with the dead-“ His eyes widen, hands clamping over his mouth, but we both heard the rest of his unfinished sentence. I hold up my hand before he can apologize, though.

“You’re right,” I say, my voice surprisingly steady, even to myself. “I am the one with the dead mom. But you can be upset about institutionalized racism and perpetually unresolved mommy issues at the same time, right?”

“Sure,” Jacob offers, still a little wide-eyed by his own unintentional callousness. “But I’m still sorry about it. Sometimes I say things without thinking, and I… well. I’m sorry.”

We sit in silence for a beat, before a laugh suddenly bubbles out of my throat.

“What is it?”

“You’re the first person who told me that who I don’t feel like beating the shit out of,” I tell him, and though he tries to hide it, I can tell he’s resisting the urge to smile.

“So,” He says, as I start up the car and make a U-Turn back the way we came. “Aside from a girl making fun of the fact that your mom is dead- and seriously, what is the punch-line to that? Ha-ha, look at this loser whose mom is dead?-, is there anyone at school that’s causing trouble for you?”

“Not trouble, per say,” I tell him, driving slowly so that we’ll reach the house only after I’ve finished using Jacob as my impromptu therapy session, “but there’s this one group that seem kind of ‘off,’ if you know what I’m saying.”

“Like… they’re sniffing paint fumes or something?”

My lips twitch up in a smile despite myself.

“Not exactly,” I say dryly. “They haven’t done anything, really. Actually, one of them talked to me a little during first period, and he was… okay, I guess. But it’s just- ugh, this’ll make so much more sense if you know the Cullens.”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Jacob says, but his voice seems a little weird. When I look at him, he seems a few shades paler than usual, the side of his head pressing against the window as he speaks. “Dad’s, uh, _weird_ about them.”

“Weird how?”

“It’d make so much more sense if you knew my dad,” Jacob says, parroting my words, and I roll my eyes at him. “Honestly, it’s nothing. Too hard to explain, and not worth explaining in the first place. Let’s just say he has no love for Carlisle Cullen or his kids. But let’s go back to you- what is it about them that’s bothering you?”

“That’s the thing,” I say frustratedly, ignoring, for the moment, his obvious attempts to deflect attention off of his dad and Carlisle Cullen. “They haven’t done _anything._ They don’t really speak to anybody, either- minus Emmett-, or so I’m told. But I just think it’s weird that nobody but _myself_ thinks it’s weird that, even though they’re all foster kids, they somehow have the same eye colors and the same, like, angular features, and the same skin tone- white as snow.”

Jacob says nothing, and when I glance at him, he’s looking at me pointedly up and down.

“Whiter than me,” I amend. “Like, is it possible they’re all somehow anemic and also for some reason decided to wear the same color contact lenses?”

“Maybe you should ask them yourself,” Jacob suggests, and the mental image of walking up to their table at lunch and demanding where they collectively got their contact lenses from is so ludicrous that I immediately bat it away.

“Yeah, I think I’ll pass, thanks,” I say, as we pull back up into the driveway of the house. “Honestly, I think bitching about them is just a way to get my mind off- off the obvious. Just ignore me.”

This time, it’s Jacob who barks out a laugh, and me who gives him a side-eyed look.

“What?”

“You’re a lot of things, Bella,” He says, eyes warm, “but ignorable isn’t one of them.”

“Oh, do I not look like a conventional small-town high school student to you?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. Before he can stammer out a response, Charlie beckons us to come inside from the living room window overlooking the street. Jacob looks immensely relieved as we clamber out of the truck together.

Inside, the house is warm and the smell of fried fish wafts through the corridor. The loud, jovial dinner that follows is enough to keep my mind off the Cullens, but later in bed that night, my mind returns back to what Jacob said, about there being no love lost between Carlisle and Billy. When would Billy have ever met Carlisle in the first place- or any of the Cullens, for that matter? Why was Jacob so obviously deflecting my questions, when he’d been nothing but totally earnest that entire car ride around Forks? And how was it that I spent the past day and a half in Forks, and Phil didn’t even call or email me _once_ to see how I was holding up?

I distract myself from my tumultuous thoughts by humming Ms. Jackson, but it’s only when I’m begging for her forgiveness for making her daughter cry for the third time around that I’m finally able to drift off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope I didn't seem too #performative lib during the whole bella-jake convo but I think it's kind of laughable how smeyer basically used Jacob's native heritage as a way to explore a way to incorporate werewolves into the story and didn't really use it for much else regarding his personality or like p much anything about him whew


	3. Chapter 3

I’m not surprised to see Emmett waiting for me behind the bleachers during gym the next morning.

First thing I did when I woke up was attempt to cut my hair, trying to even it out, but the result was that I ended up with a bob that looked like it belonged on a forty-five-old mother of three, so I ended up cutting what was left of my long hair. Now it curls at the nape of my neck and makes me look like I regularly abuse prescription pills on the daily, but between that and Shannon who demands to see the manager when the food isn’t up to par with her exacting standards, I think I’ve gotten a pretty good deal.

Emmett notices, naturally. Today he’s wearing a thin sweatshirt that clings to his muscles and makes me feel woefully inadequate in my P.E. shorts and long-sleeved shirt (though I had an option for a tee shirt, I picked out the long-sleeve for obvious reasons), but his attention is mostly fixated on my head.

“Bella,” He greets warmly, jogging up to me. “You didn’t tell me that you’ve quit school and become the newest member of a garage boy-band!”

I wrinkle my nose at him.

“That isn’t any way to talk about the Arctic Monkeys,” I rejoin, feeling like I should be holding a cigarette holder and speak in a transatlantic accent during our conversation.

“Who?”

I stare at him. His face is devoid of any artifice, but I genuinely cannot believe that Emmett has avoided listening to the radio for the past, oh, decade or so. I mean, it’s 2005. Get with the times.

“Nevermind,” I say, leaning against the bleachers’ steel beam. “Your family seems nice, by the way.”

Though his smile doesn’t falter, Emmett’s shoulders tense up.

“And that means…?”

“You guys, all sitting in a group together,” I made a circling motion to emphasize my point. “It’s cute. I’m an only child, but I’m pretty sure siblings aren’t usually so well-behaved around each other.”

“Why no siblings?” Emmett says blithely, obviously ignoring the barb, and now it’s my turn to bristle. I don’t know how to explain to him that Mom left Charlie when I was a kid, and when Mom and Phil hit it off, they were both too old to have kids anymore, and besides that my chest and head ache in tandem when I think about Mom, so instead of giving an answer I just shrug.

Emmett copies my shrug perfectly, which I profusely resent.

“I can be reticent and secretive, too,” he informs me, and a laugh bubbles up in my throat despite myself. I’ve spoken to him for maybe an hour and fifteen minutes, max, in the time between yesterday and now, and yet I know that imagining Emmett as edgy and sullen would be like imagining an ugly Rosalie.

Which reminds me-

“What’s the deal with you and Rosalie?” I ask, before realizing how that sounds like. Hurriedly, I add, “Or Jasper and Alice, for that matter. Thought you guys were all foster siblings?”

Emmett winces, but it’s so imperceptible I can’t be sure it wasn’t just some slight, forgettable movement.

“Going for the big guns, are we?” He asks, rubbing the back of his neck. I frown. It really is unfair how attractive he is; I bet he was like that as a kid, some adorable kid with dimples in his cheeks and a gap between his teeth that he’d have fixed later on in his life. The only thing I could say in my defense as a kid was that my teeth were always straight. (The rest of me was definitively not).

“Well,” He continues, “Alice, Edward, and I are adopted, and Jazz and Rose are foster siblings. Honestly, Carlisle kind of planned it that way, because Alice and Jazz hit it off the moment they met, and Rose and I were pretty much head-over-heels from the moment I laid eyes on her. He and Esme would’ve adopted them otherwise, but it wouldn’t have looked great if people thought we were in incestuous relationships with our adopted siblings.”

“But foster siblings are fine,” I say, nodding somberly. “Got it.”

Emmett cracks a smile at that.

“Either way I go about describing it,” he says, “it’ll sound weird. But trust me- I have never, ever viewed Rosalie as a sibling in the slightest. Honestly, she’d be kind of a nightmare to be related to. I’d get an inferiority complex by the time I could speak.”

A snort escapes before I can stop myself. Emmett raises his eyebrows at me, and I gesture helplessly at his entire body.

“I think people get inferiority complexes just by passing you on the street,” I tell him, and he tilts his head back and laughs in response, which just proves my point even further. Even though he and Rosalie are almost polar opposites when it comes to looks- dark-haired where she’s blonde, easy smiles where she’s all scowls-, they still somehow manage to be perfectly matched in terms of beauty.

His laughter finally trails off, and my hands drift up to play with my hair before I remember that my hair is gone for the time being. I let my hands fall limply to my sides while Emmett looks at me, his gaze dark and expectant.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.

He gives me a surprised look. “What? Why?”

“I was an asshole yesterday,” I say, looking away from him. “I lashed out at you, which wasn’t exactly fair. You were just trying to be friendly.”

“Don’t sweat about it, Bella,” Emmett says, his voice warm enough that I summon up the will to work past my discomfort and look at him. That’s a mistake, all right; his eyes crinkle as he looks down at me, lips quirked upwards as though he’s holding in a laugh, but I can’t tell if he’s laughing at me or with me. “I know I can be, uh, overbearing at times.”

We stand in silence for an uncomfortable beat. Two.

Then: “Coach Pornstache’s looking for you by now.”

I wince.

“Shit. Okay, I’m going to head out. Nice to, um…”

“Yeah,” Emmett says, smiling in earnest now. “Nice to ‘um’ you too.”

I leave before I can embarrass myself any further.

* * *

I was right about one thing, at least. I’m in Jessica’s bad graces.

She huffs when she sees me in Trig, and though we’re supposed to work with partners sitting next to us for today’s lesson, we both do our work silently, a crackle of tension in the air between us. I don’t know what’s her problem, nor do I particularly care to know. After all, it was Lauren’s face I drew that was being splattered by viscous semen, not _hers,_ but I suppose I must’ve scarred Jessica a little in doing so. Nobody wants to picture Lauren in the middle of orgasm.

 _Oh, wow, demeaning a girl by implying that she’s performing poorly sexually?_ I chastise myself, sighing loud enough that Jessica’s head swivels upwards before immediately turning back down to her paper, as if she doesn’t want to betray any sort of interest in me. I don’t particularly want to get into her good graces anymore- or Lauren’s, for that matter. But I also don’t want to sit in the bathroom by myself for the remainder of my high school career.

Honestly, what I really want is for Jacob to somehow miraculously appear in thin air and sit with me at lunch, but I know that isn’t going to happen anytime soon, so I make a battle plan for the remaining five minutes we have in Trig. I’m going to go to the cafeteria and claim a table, and then I’m going to hunker down for the next several months with a copy of The People’s History of the United States blatantly sitting on the table in front of me. That’ll be enough to dissuade anybody from coming and bothering me, right?

I put my plan into action as soon as the bell rings after fourth period. I make a beeline to the cafeteria, grabbing a tray of mystery meat and a mini apple juice carton I’m planning on discarding as soon as the lunch ladies aren’t looking at me. Then I pick a table that I vaguely remember nobody sitting at yesterday, and I yank out my sketchbook from my bag.

It’s the last birthday present Mom ever gave to me, and it’s arguably one of the best. She got it at a thrift shop, and while I had to rip out the first few pages (there were misshapen doodles of what looked to be some kid’s pet dog on at least three of them), the rest of the book was pristine, bound in soft brown leather with my initials scrawled out on the bottom in blocky black ink (Phil’s contribution to my gift).

I’m in the middle of a sketch when the back of my neck prickles. Looking up, I immediately realize why everyone steered clear of this table yesterday. It’s the one that’s closest to the Cullens, and though they aren’t looking in my direction, their faces are twisted into various degrees of disgust that I’m not sure are solely because of the untouched mystery meat platters in front of them. Rosalie, I notice, looks especially repulsed, her hands balled into fists at her side and a look of barely suppressed rage warping her gorgeous features into something decisively unsettling. Jasper bends his head towards her, murmuring something under his breath as the others attempt to calm her down.

Emmett, naturally, is the exception, giving me a lopsided grin when he realizes that I’m looking at him. I give him a lazy two-finger salute in response before turning my attention back down to my sketchbook. It’s a little uncomfortable to be in such close proximity to people who should be starring in New York’s Fashion Week rather than in high school, but walking away now will look like cowardice, even if I _do_ feel my insides slowly freeze to ice when I catch sight of Rosalie glowering at me.

I look down at what I’ve drawn so far to avoid her piercing gaze, and it’s then that I shove the sketchbook into my bag and all but run from the table. I’ve drawn Mom’s eyes, over and over; the liquid blue of them, the arched eyebrows raising in surprise, the skin around them crinkled in the familiar crow’s feet. I walk out of the building as fast as I can, catching the ire of a security guard who asks me just where I think I’m going, but I mumble something like “period” under my breath and he lets me storm off to the bathroom without any trouble.

Once I’m safely back inside my stall (and how awful is it, that I’m already thinking of the stall with the suspicious stain on the toilet seat as _mine?_ ), I rip out the page with Mom’s eyes on it and flush it down the toilet. It makes a gross gurgling sound but stays down, and I sigh, resting my palms against my forehead.

It'd be easy to blame Mom as the root cause for my sitting alone in the bathroom for the second day in a row, but honestly, it’s just me. What little friends I had in Phoenix couldn’t really be considered friends at all, more than they could people who sat together at lunch because nobody else would have them. I’ve been told I’m off-putting and sullen more than once (mostly by Mom, when we were in one of our arguments), but it’s only here that I’m experiencing the full brunt of how wholly unlikeable I am.

Aren’t I allowed to be unlikeable, though? I mean, Mom _just_ died. It’s not like I would’ve been considered charismatic before, but having your parent die on you kind of gives you a bad attitude. Worse attitude, in my case. Besides, it’s not like the Cullens (exempting Emmett) are any more friendly than I am, and yet people talk about them in hushed whispers and awed glances. It’s so unfair.

I’m trying to think of a way to convince Charlie to homeschool me when the bell rings for fifth period. I debate actually going to class, but end up sitting in my car, listening to a pop song that’s been on the radio for the past two weeks. I mumble some of the lyrics under my breath as I reach for Mom’s pack of cigarettes in the back seat, tossed there surreptitiously this morning so Charlie wouldn’t be suspicious about the odd, cigarette-shaped lump in my jacket. It's a bad habit I’m forming, I know, but that’s honestly one of the main reasons I’m doing it. I know Mom’s turning over in her grave every time I put the lighter to the tip and crank the window just enough to let the smoke out.

Besides, I’m only doing it until this first cigarette carton lasts. I’m not rich enough to afford a nicotine addiction, and I don’t really want to contract lung cancer. I do, however, want to rebel in my own way, however small, because it seems like an understandable and even natural reaction to a parent’s death, and until I can get my hands on something worse, this seems like the best way to go about orchestrating my own self-destruction.

And that, of course, is when somebody taps on my window.

I’m half-expecting Emmett Cullen to be there, but it’s just the security guard from before. I breathe out a relieved sigh and bring the cigarette back up to my lips where it was frozen in midair at the noise, before I freeze once again and slowly turn to look at the security guard again.

He doesn’t look happy, to say the least.

“Inside,” he commands. “ _Now_ , please.”

 _At least he has the good grace to say please,_ I think to myself, as I reluctantly follow him back inside the school building. Of course, it’s as much of a shitshow as you might expect. The principal- a balding, middle-aged man with glasses way too big for his face- lectures me for about thirty minutes on school policy against illicit substances, before he finally calls Charlie to come pick me up.

I’m suspended for a week, the principal tells Charlie and I with unnecessary cheer. He informs us that it was an anonymous tipper who informed him of my whereabouts, which is just a fancy way of saying that Lauren totally ratted me out as retribution for what happened yesterday-, but that doesn’t concern me as much as the look on Charlie’s face does when we quietly exit the principal’s office.

“Dad-“ I begin, but he cuts me off with a wordless shake of his head that makes me feel worse than if he started to scream at me for being a disgrace and a besmircher of his good name.

“Just… go to your truck, Bella,” He says, looking more tired than I’ve ever seen him. “Go to your truck and drive straight back home, and we’ll- we’ll discuss consequences later.”

He leaves before I can say anything else. I trudge back to my car, head hung low as a dog sent out in the rain for ripping up his owner’s favorite pillow. Just because I feel like shit all the time doesn’t mean I have to make Charlie feel like shit, too. It’s not his fault his ex-wife died and left his daughter a total wreck of a human being.

The infamous silver Volvo is parked right across from my truck as I clamber into it, and I can easily make out Rosalie’s blonde hair in the driver’s seat, waiting for her foster siblings (and supposedly non-incestuous lover) to join her. When she catches sight of me across from her, I can see her nostrils flare, and I roll my eyes at her in response before jerking the truck into reverse. I have bigger issues to deal with right now than Rosalie’s profound dislike of me, even though we haven’t so much as exchanged a single word to each other.

The thought that I won’t have to deal with her glaring for a week is at least a little cheering. I cling to it so I can distract myself from the fact that I’ve made Charlie cry as I sit across from him at the table in the kitchen, hard as he tries to ignore the fact that his eyes are still brimming with unshed tears.

“Is it my fault?” He asks finally, after a horrible silence, and I jerk upright in my seat.

“No, Ch- Dad, of course it isn’t,” I tell him adamantly, leaning forward so he can see how completely, utterly earnest I am in this moment. “It’s all me.”

“Then what-“ and here his voice cracks with the weight of all he’s suppressing so I don’t have to see my old man cry- “can I do to help you with this? Tell me, Bella, please. I know that I haven’t been as close with you as I would’ve liked, but I want to, now. I want to know how to help you, and I can’t, and I-“

“Dad,” I begin, my eyes now also tearing up, and I hate myself for it. I hadn’t even cried at Mom’s funeral, and I’m not about to start now. Not over something as stupid as being caught with a cigarette at school. “Dad, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to- to _hurt_ you or anything, but I just- I don’t know how to-”

“Should I call Phil, maybe?” Charlie asks, ignoring my rambling. “Would you be willing to talk to him?”

I laugh at that, a little too loudly than the question warrants. Still, to imagine calling Phil about getting into trouble at school while he’s still deeply mourning the loss of his wife is wildly, inappropriately funny to me.

“I think I’ll pass,” I tell him, and he lets out a sigh that sounds like a balloon deflating.

“Please tell me you aren’t going to smoke anymore,” he says, and I nod immediately.

“I won’t. Promise.”

“Okay,” Charlie says, leaning back in his chair to look at me fully. “Okay. And I’m also taking your car keys until your suspension is over.”

That’s a blow, I have to admit. I’ve been planning the car ride over to go out to Seattle- or at least Port Angeles- while I’m suspended, but I know better than to argue with Charlie about this. He’s going easy on me, all things considered.

“Fine.”

“And will you please consider talking to a therap-“

I get up from my seat before he can finish the sentence.

“This has been a great talk, Dad,” I tell him, “but I’m feeling really tired. Is it okay if I go take a nap in my room?”

Once again, he nods wordlessly. I walk out of the kitchen as slowly as I can, but once I’m out of his line of sight, I run up to my room like I’m being chased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly I get that using the cover of "foster siblings" is p convenient to the cullens but also like if they're going to do that then Emmett and Rosalie and Jasper and Alice can refrain from being a couple in public right?? like, wouldn't it just raise more eyebrows that the foster kids (minus Edward) are all dating each other?? is it just me or am I deeply, profoundly overthinking this??


	4. Chapter 4

I exhaust myself within three days of my suspension.

I read Jane Eyre twice and get myself off to Mr. Rochester professing his love twice more than that; I watch every single DVD Charlie has to offer (which consists mostly of old Westerns and Caddyshack, absolutely nothing in between); I even delve into the woods behind our house out of sheer boredom, only to immediately turn back the second I hear a twig snap.

Charlie isn’t home often, either, which I can’t tell if I like or regret. On one hand: room to sing embarrassingly loud to Mom’s old records. On the other hand: I know why he’s avoiding the house, mainly that I’m a disappointment to him and I haven’t even been in Forks for two weeks. He hasn’t come out and said it- he wouldn’t, he’s too nice to say anything of the sort-, but I wish he would. Better to get it all out in the open, instead of stewing in uncomfortable silence during dinner.

And because I haven’t managed to make a single friend in the time I’ve spent at Forks (save Jacob, and I don’t expect him to drive all the way down from the rez to watch crappy Disney Channel original movies with me every time I’m feeling down), I have nobody to talk to. I thought I’d like it like that- like the fact that I have hours upon hours to be by myself, but it turns out that being by yourself is something you should generally avoid when your mom has just died and you don’t have any distractions to keep you from your intrusive thoughts.

I hate being a cliché, but I’ve run out of places to cut myself without raising Charlie’s suspicion. Even he, who spends maybe a max of ten hours at home every day (including sleeping), wouldn’t be able to miss the fact that I’m wearing gloves inside because there are odd, horizontal cuts down the back of my hand. I feel like I’m thirteen again, ripping the head of a razor blade off its body because I’m bored and lonely and it seems like there’s a black cloud following me at every turn.

This last part might be due to the fact that Phil sent me an email last night, though.

My heart nearly stopped when I saw who the sender was. I’m not sure what I expected- maybe a, “Hey, how are you, I know we left things on a rough end but I still called you my daughter for half a year, so we can look past the fact that you embarrassed me in front of all your mother’s and my friends,” or perhaps a, “How’s Forks going, we miss you out in Arizona, I don’t know who ‘we’ is referencing considering the fact that your mother’s dead and you had no friends here, I want to know if maybe that’s changed since you moved to Washington,” or even a short, “Hey, I don’t blame you for your mom’s death.” I think I was craving that last one most of all.

But his email was completely bereft of any emotional heart-to-heart that I uncharacteristically wished he’d embed in every line and every syllable. Instead, it read,

“Isabella,

I’m sending you what’s left of your mother’s things. Just some old shirts, a few old drawings and pictures, etc. I’m not going to renew the lease this month. Probably going to stay with some old college buddies for a couple of days before we go to the championships. So don’t mail the house, OK?”

That was it. Five sentences- six if you include the line where he wrote my name. Six months of attending his godawful baseball games, of watching him grill burgers on our rusted barbeque, of letting him and Mom drag me to superhero blockbusters that I hated to admit were totally engaging, all tossed away with six sentences. Fifty-six words. He didn’t even have the courtesy to write “Bella,” not “Isabella.”

I wrote eight drafts, struggling to articulate how I felt, how I never expected his absence to be so potent but neither did I expect Mom to die at age forty-one, so maybe I didn’t really have good intuition after all. In the end, I erased all of them and sent him a one-word email in response: “OK.”

With that bridge totally burned, I had crumpled onto my bed and dragged my comforter over my head, and when that didn’t prove to be enough weight, I added a quilt and four pillows with which to crush and potentially suffocate myself. I had to emerge from my cocoon when Charlie got home, but Charlie’s going to be gone all day today. Nobody’s stopping me from attempting to crush myself with blankets from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

And that, naturally, is when the doorbell chimes downstairs.

I debate letting whoever’s at the door stand there until they give up and leave, but eventually I force myself onto my feet and walk downstairs. I’ve already dragged Charlie’s reputation through the gutter as it is; I’d rather not give people the impression that I’ve finally lost it and he’s been forced to lock me up in the attic, a la Bertha Mason.

Whoever I’m expecting as I open the door, it sure as hell isn’t Jessica Stanley, beaming up at me as though she and her friends haven’t been gossiping about me behind my back during the past few days. Which is fair, honestly- I mean, I _did_ draw explicit cartoon dicks and practically shove it in Lauren’s face. It still stings, though, and their reactions afterwards kind of gave me the impression that I wouldn’t be seeing any of them on my doorstep in the nearby future.

But, like I said, my intuition is worse than a middle-aged mom who continuously gets preyed upon by pyramid schemes. And no matter how hard I blink, Jessica’s still standing there, her smile faltering the longer I stand in the doorframe of the house, staring down at her with what is undoubtedly a stupid expression on my face.

“Jessica,” I finally say, if only to break the horrifically uncomfortable silence. “What are you doing here?"

She waves a thick folder of papers I hadn’t noticed, during my indiscreet ogling of her.

“Homework,” she chirps. “Mr. Koffmann asked if I could pick up your trig homework for you, and I figured that, as long as I was doing that, I might as well collect your homework from other teachers.”

“Uh, why?”

She laughs, very artificially.

“Because I wanted to, silly!” She says, smiling so hard my cheeks twitch in sympathy for hers, before promptly pushing past me and into the house without so much as waiting for an invitation to come inside. Blinking, I shut the door behind her and follow her into the living room, where she’s gazing around with unabashed interest.

“So this is where Charlie Swan lives, huh?” She asks, poking at an old afghan draped over a leather armchair. “It’s not as sad and pathetic as I thought it would be. For a middle-aged bachelor, I mean. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” I agree warily. “So-“

“I lied,” she says, spinning around on her heel as she drops the folder down unceremoniously onto the coffee table. There’s no sign of a smile on her face anymore, which is contorted in a thinly veiled mask of unadulterated panic. “I didn’t come just to give you your homework.”

“I figured.”

“I came,” she says, flopping down on the couch, “because I need your help with Lauren.”

I stare at her for a beat. Two. Then-

“I’m not drawing another page full of dicks for her to potentially blackmail me with, Jessica. It’s a miracle she hasn’t shown the principal or a counselor by now.”

“Oh, she tried,” says Jessica casually, running a hand through her hair. “But all the counselors are busy with updating the schedules for freshmen right now. The one and only Algebra teacher died of, like, a heart attack a few weeks ago, and now the entire system is in a fritz. But that’s beside the point- Lauren is trying to _ruin my life.”_

I don’t even bother to suppress the snort that comes out of my nose.

“Oh, so when it’s her trying to ruin _your_ life, you can just waltz up to me like you guys weren’t totally ragging on me behind my back?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest so defensively I know I’ll cringe about it later.

Jessica lets out a long breath through pursed lips.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she says, sounding oddly sincere. “Lauren was completely out of line when she said that thing about your mom. But then you gave her those cartoon penises, and it just got out of hand. But look- if you help me out, you won’t have to sit by yourself at lunch anymore.”

I give her a skeptical look.

“What did Lauren even do?” I finally ask, taking a seat beside her. I see her nose twitching a little as I turn to face her, which seems a bit of an exaggeration- yeah, I haven’t showered since I got suspended, but in my defense, it’s only been two days. I don’t smell that bad, right?

Then again, I have been holed up in my room, sobbing with occasional intervals of masturbating to Victorian novels, and realize that I probably do, in fact, smell that bad. Charlie’s absence might’ve been nice at the beginning, but I’m realizing now that I can’t really be left home alone without all but throwing social etiquette out the window.

Jessica takes a deep breath.

“She hooked up with Mike yesterday,” she tells me, her eyes welling up with tears as she speaks. Oh God. The only crying person I’ve ever managed to comfort is Mom, and look at where she turned out in the end. I don’t have the emotional capacity to comfort anyone right now, least of all Jessica.

Thankfully, she doesn’t seem to be looking for comfort. She powers through her tears instead, telling me the entire sordid story, which goes how you might expect. Jessica’s had a crush on Mike for forever, Lauren _knows_ this, and yet she led Mike behind the bleachers at school and let him feel her up yesterday evening, and she told Angela who told Jessica, blah blah blah.

“What can I even do about this?” I ask, once Jessica’s finished. “Like, I’m sorry, Jessica, but if Mike likes Lauren, he likes Lauren. I can’t do anything about that.”

“That’s the thing though,” Jessica says, eyes gleaming with triumph. “Lauren doesn’t like _Mike._ She only hooked up with him because we got into a fight about whether she stole my green scrunchie in the locker room a few days ago- which she _so_ did, by the way.”

“Okay, so, who does Lauren like?”

“Emmett Cullen.”

“You’re kidding me,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. Jessica shakes her head, looking deadly serious.

“Nope. She told me herself months ago. Apparently, she’s _really_ into jocks.”

“Huh.” Lauren doesn’t strike me as the type to like a guy whose biceps are three times bigger than her waist- I always thought of her as one of those female spiders, who mate with smaller males before eating them whole, but I guess not. “Wait, but I’m still confused- what does that have to do with me?”

“You’re friends with him, aren’t you?”

“I barely know him.”

“But you’ve spoken to him, and that’s more than I can say for pretty much _anybody_ in Forks who isn’t living with him,” Jessica counters quickly. Seeing my expression, she adds, “Look, I’m not asking you to propose to the guy. Just ask if he can hang out with you at Port Angeles on Saturday next week- your suspension will be over then, right?”

“I mean, yeah, but-“

“Great! I told Angela and Lauren that I want a girls’ night out, so we’re going to be in that area for several hours. But it’d be best if you come around seven, maybe eight-“

“Jessica, what’s the point of this?” I interrupt, not a little exasperation in my voice. “What are you trying to accomplish?”

“It’s simple,” Jessica says, leaning forward with an almost sinister gleam in her eyes. “You and Emmett walk around Port Angeles, Angela and Lauren and I ‘run into’ you guys, Lauren’s heart totally shatters at the thought that you managed to charm Emmett when she’s been lusting after him since sophomore year, and while she’s downing lukewarm beer in her mom’s basement, I ask Mike out on a date. You can sit with us again once she’s out of the way, I promise.”

“I’m not going to- to fucking demean myself in front of Emmett Cullen for the grand reward of sitting with you guys at lunch,” I say, as scathingly as I can muster. I try to ignore the part of my brain that’s screaming at me for subjugating myself to eating shitty meatloaf in the girls’ bathroom until graduation, but the mere thought of asking Emmett Cullen if he wants to hang out after school makes my stomach churn with dread.

“Think about it this way,” Jessica says, scooting so close that I can smell the lilac perfume clinging to her sweater. “You do this, and it’ll be Lauren’s ultimate humiliation. Don’t you want a little revenge? I mean, you remember what she said about your mom the first day you met her, right?”

I will say one thing on Jessica’s behalf- that girl knows how to press your buttons.

I groan in response, letting my head fall into my hands as my elbows dig into my kneecaps. I don’t want to take up Jessica’s offer, but it’s a two-for-one I can’t refuse- not having to sit alone for the rest of my senior year of high school, yeah, but also being a spiteful asshole to an even more spiteful asshole.

Plus, I’m pretty sure Emmett’s nice enough to not immediately shoot me down, at least, so that’s a big factor in my reluctantly agreeing to go along with Jessica’s half-baked revenge plan.

“Fine,” I say, lifting my head back up from my hands. “Fine. But there’s no guarantee that he’s going to say yes in the first place.”

“Oh, he’ll say yes,” says Jessica confidently. “I mean, underneath the grime and perpetual sadness on your face, you’re actually really pretty. Ooh, wait- does this mean I can give you a makeover?”

“No.”

Jessica pouts. “You’re no fun.”

Still, she looks like the cat who got the cream as she saunters out the front door a few minutes later. I watch her go, anxiety gripping my throat tight. It’s not that I don’t want to ask Emmett if he’d like to hang out- honestly, aside from Jacob Black and my own father, he’s been the nicest person in Forks that I’ve met so far. But that doesn’t mean I’m tempted to ruin the casual back-and-forth banter we have going on at school because Jessica wants to make Lauren jealous.

And it’s been so long since I’ve interacted with anybody but my own hand, I’m not even sure how I’d word the question to begin with. Like, would I go for a nonchalant, “Hey, do you want to hang out at Port Angeles on Saturday?” or would I explain Jessica’s harebrained scheme beforehand, or would I end up word-vomiting enough to render myself totally incoherent?

“You have a week to think about it,” I tell myself sternly. Stressing out about this won’t do me any good, so instead I return to the one thing I am good at: fantasizing about a fictional character who’s been dead longer than the past four generations of my family have been alive, and trying hard not to think about the fact that Phil’s email is still open on my computer screen, painfully bright in the dark of my bedroom.

* * *

The rest of the week goes by painfully slow. It’s not like I’m stuck inside the house, so I drive around Forks for the next few days, but passing the same convenience store for the third time in a day gets boring fast, so I end up staying in my room most of the time.

I finally get around to showering, though it’s a little difficult, since the mirror in the bathroom spans a good half of the wall and I’d rather not look at myself naked unless I absolutely have to. I end up hanging a towel over the mirror which I forget to take down, causing a weeks’ worth of worried glances from Charlie that I’m unsure how the hell I’m supposed to begin answering.

He knows that something is wrong- well, more wrong than usual- when he gets home at ten in the evening and I’m curled up on my bed, facing the wall, as I have been for the past several hours, but all he does is stare at me quietly for a beat, before shutting my bedroom door on his way out. I feel like I should tell him that Phil essentially blocked me from ever going back to Arizona again, so if Charlie wants to ship me back home it’s a lost cause, but I also don’t want to start a fight, so I end up not saying anything at all for the entire week. He finds out sooner or later, anyway- the package that Phil told me he’d send arrives the next day, and I leave the note Phil left on the inside of the box on the kitchen table; it’s easier than having to explain I’m being written off by my ex-stepfather.

On one hand, I’m happy to have all of Mom’s old things with me- shirts she loved, her old high school yearbook, a half-empty bottle of perfume I gave her for her birthday last year. But on the other hand, having all her blouses and books and trinkets surrounding me at every turn is just a reminder of how the person who once owned and loved those things will never use them again, and I spend the first ten minutes after opening the box crouched on the floor of the bathroom, clutching my head as I stave off a panic attack.

I make the mistake of wearing one of her old sweatshirts around the house, which, when Charlie sees what I’m wearing, causes his entire face to blanch before my eyes. I’m worried I’ve accidentally induced a heart attack in him when he blinks a few times, nostrils flaring as he breathes in deep.

“Dad?” I ask tentatively, quietly, but he just shakes his head.

“That was mine,” he says, after a pregnant pause. “My sweatshirt. I gave it to your mom when we were still dating. I thought I’d lost it after all these years, but, uh, I guess it turns out that she kept it.”

“Oh,” I say, at a loss for words. “Um, do you want it back?”

“No,” He says, a little too quickly to be believable. “No, it’s just- it gave me quite a start. That’s all. It looks good on you, Bella, really.”

Still, after that I keep Mom’s shirts at the bottom of my dresser. No point in dredging up old ghosts best left forgotten, after all.

Jacob comes to keep me company on the fifth day of my exile from Forks High, and I’m so pleased to have human contact that doesn’t consist of eating quietly with Charlie during dinner that I latch my arms around his neck and refuse to let go for a solid thirty seconds.

He laughs delightedly when I finally pull away, face no doubt the color of a ripe tomato.

“If I’d known you’d be this happy to see me, I would’ve come earlier,” He tells me, grinning as we pile into my truck and pull down the street.

“You have school,” I remind him. “And you live, like, forty-five minutes away. I don’t expect you to come at my beck and call.”

“I would if it’s you,” Jacob says, so quietly I’m unsure if I’m hearing things or not. In a slightly uncomfortable silence, we drive down the road until we wind up at The Lodge, the tackiest restaurant in all of Washington which just so happens to be Charlie’s favorite. I order pancakes and over-easy eggs at two in the afternoon, and feel immensely gratified by Jacob’s impressed whistle as I shove a whole pancake into my mouth.

I tell him about Jessica’s scheme as he spears a sausage and pops it into his mouth, and he almost spews me with beef as his jaw hangs open.

“But you’re not going to go through with it, right?” He demands as he hastily swallows the rest of the sausage. I shrug, scraping the last bit of whipped cream off my plate before pushing it back, my belt digging into my stomach as I lean against the cushions of our booth.

“I mean, it’s either go through with it or eat in the same place people shit, so…” I trail off; Jacob’s expression is queasy, and I’m fairly sure it’s not because the links he ordered are so greasy, the fat dribbles down his hand.

“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to hang around with Cullens, Bella,” Jacob says, and I can’t help but laugh a little.

“You say their name like it’s a slur,” I explain, when Jacob cocks his head at me like a curious puppy. “I thought your dad was the one with a problem with the Cullens, not you.”

“Yeah, well,” Jacob mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “You don’t live with a guy for seven years and internalize at least some of the vitriol he has towards someone. I mean, I personally think it’s a little much, the way he goes on and on about them- but I also think there is some merit to his words. At least a little bit.”

“You never did explain what his problem with them was in the first place,” I point out, and this time, it’s Jacob’s turn to shrug uncomfortably.

“Like I said before, it’s not my place to tell. But enough about the Cullens- did you hear that the Gwen Stefani released a new song?”

“Wait, seriously?”

“It’s called ‘Hollaback Girl,’ and it’s going to _change your life_.”

But as we dump fistfuls of one-dollar bills on the table and walk out the door, I can’t help but feel that he’s deflecting- and that I’m going along with it, not because I don’t know that he’s deflecting, but because I want to live in a world where Emmett Cullen exists for the sole purpose of cracking jokes and potentially rejecting me when I ask him to hang out with me on the weekend, nothing more or less. Still, as we listen to Gwen Stefani crooning that _this_ is her shit, right here, I feel the dread rising in my throat.

There’s still so much that I don’t understand about this place- so much of it that eludes me, it almost makes me wish for the nightmare of the Arizona suburbs. If I were still living with Phil, there’d be no mysterious, too-hot-for-their-own-good Cullens to think about a little more than is healthy. Then again, if I were still living with Phil, I’d be surrounded by reminders of Mom at every waking moment. Being anxious over asking a hot jock out on the weekend and messing up every single line of a rap song that isn’t the chorus is preferable to that, any day of the week. Or so I tell myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally I was going to put "wake me up when September ends" in lieu of "hollaback girl" since both were released in 2005 but green day released that one in august so i'm staying true to what green day would've wanted 4 this


	5. Chapter 5

I know it’s optimistic of me to think I won’t attract any attention when I go back to school, but it’s still off-putting to realize that the entirety of the parking lot is watching as I park my truck and clamber out. I’m wearing my least inoffensive outfit today- white blouse, black slacks, loafers that make me look like a receptionist from a 1940s film noir, etcetera-, but the way Lauren glares out at me from across the lot makes me feel like I’ve arrived just in time for first period wearing thrasher gear.

But maybe I’m just being paranoid- I woke up the other night in a cold sweat, the back of my neck prickling as though somebody was watching me. Which is absurd, I know, but tell that to a person who’s been cooped inside for an entire week with nothing to do and see where that gets you. It didn’t really help matters that Charlie decided to try and give me a pep talk before I left for school today; I’m sure he meant well, but his attempts to indulge in fatherly behavior after he all but ignored me for the past seven days irked me so much I had to abruptly leave the kitchen table to take shelter in my truck.

Jessica’s waiting for me in the locker room when I get to first period. She’s pinching her nose, which I think is a little unfair; it’s the early morning, and nobody’s been sweating enough to warrant nose-pinching of any kind, but I think it’s more to do with the fact that the girls in the immediate area are underclassmen, and thus inherently pungent to Jessica’s delicate sensitivities.

“Sorry we had to meet here,” she says, voice nasally as a Muppet’s as she speaks. “But this is the safest place for us to talk without, um…”

“Without anybody seeing you here with me,” I say dryly, before yanking off my blouse and pulling my gym shirt on before she sees anything she’s not supposed to.

“Exactly,” She agrees, either not picking up on or just plain ignoring the vitriol in my voice. “You get it. But tell me- what’s your plan?”

“I just figured I’d ask if he wants to hang out on Saturday at Port Angeles,” I say, shrugging as I grab my sneakers out of my locker. “Didn’t think I’d make a big production out of it.”

“That’s it?” Jessica says disappointedly. “Just, ‘Do you want to hang out on Saturday at Port Angeles?’”

“You said yourself that I wouldn’t have to propose to him,” I point out, more than a little irritated by this point. “Jessica, don’t you have first period?”

“Maybe we should roleplay,” She muses, ignoring my question as she takes a seat on the bench beside me. “I can be Emmett, and you be yourself. Go.”

“Excuse me,” says a voice from above us, and both our heads snap up. A sallow-faced freshman stands in front of us, arms crossed over her chest as she looks down at Jessica. “Are you supposed to be in here?”

“Are you supposed to be your mom’s biggest disappointment?” Jessica snaps back. “Because if so, it’s working. Buzz off.”

Mouth opening and closing like a fish, the girl stammers out something along the lines of “bringing Coach McCarthy over here” before scampering out of sight.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Jessica grumbles, when she catches my open-mouthed stare. “I was up all night thinking about Mike and Lauren together. I deserve to be bitchy today.”

With a sigh, she stands up. Most of the locker room has already emptied by now, and I know for certain that I’m not going to make it in time for Coach Miller’s class without him giving me extra push-ups for being late.

“I got to get to class,” says Jessica. “Don’t screw it up, Bella, please.”

I screw it up immediately.

Coach Pornstache already has it out for me because I missed three vital minutes of class time, so not only does he give me extra push-ups, but he makes me run an entire extra lap alongside the other poor souls that weren’t punctual down to the second. When I finally manage to hide behind the bleachers without his looking, I’m covered in a fine sheen of sweat and close to toppling onto the ground.

That, of course, is when Emmett appears, but by that point I’m breathing so heavily that he has to wait while I catch my breath just to have enough air in my lungs to greet him.

“Off to a great start today,” Emmett chirps, and my knee-jerk reaction is to flip him off before I realize what I’m about to ask him. The end result is me making a weird, aborted gesture with my right hand before it falls limply to my side. He’s right; I _am_ off to a great start today.

“I haven’t exercised in a week, and I’ve been eating junk food on my couch,” I say defensively, still breathing hard as I speak. “It’s not really an awesome combination for Coach Pornstache’s class, first thing in the morning.”

“I can’t even remember what junk food tastes like,” Emmett muses, brushing his hair out of his eyes. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I haven’t seen him since I got suspended, but he looks more beautiful than I’ve ever seen him look before. It’s off-putting, to say the least. I would’ve already had trouble asking him to hang out with me if he was one of the many acne-ridden boys at school, and as it is, he’s wearing a tank top so tight, I can see the indentations of his abs beneath. I hate him.

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be training under The Rock’s regime like you,” I tell him, pressing my back against one of the bleacher’s steel beams, and he tilts his head back and laughs harder than my comment should’ve warranted.

“Please,” he says, once he’s calmed down a little. “The Rock trains under _my_ regime, not the other way around. He’s weak sauce.”

“Boasting, are we?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. He flashes me a sharp smile.

“I could lift these bleachers up with one hand,” He says, and though he’s still smiling, his tone is deadly serious. I debate calling him out on his bullshit before I decide that I probably shouldn’t antagonize the bull before asking him to hang out with me.

“So, uh, got any plans this weekend?” I ask, aiming for casual and falling completely short of the mark as he looks down at me, expression totally opaque.

“No,” He says slowly, “but if somebody were to ask me to go to Port Angeles with them this weekend, I might just say yes.”

I can’t help but gape at him.

“What, are you a mind reader now?” I ask, only partially joking, and he cracks a grin at that.

“No, but my brother is,” He says. At my questioning look, he adds, “Edward overheard Jessica speaking about it with a friend before first period. But don’t worry, Bella- I know it’s just an excuse to get me to hang out with you.”

Before I can stammer out anything, he holds up his hand.

“You don’t need an excuse,” He says, eyes crinkling. “Yes, I’d love to hang out with you at Port Angeles this weekend and bait Lauren Mallory in doing so. I thought you’d never ask.”

“Technically I didn’t ask,” I point out lamely, unable to put any heat into it. Honestly, I’m more than a little thrilled that it was _this_ easy- I didn’t expect him to say yes, much less show enthusiasm at the prospect of spending time with the new girl that’s been rumored to shoot crack (a frankly fantastic bit of gossip I’d overheard as I was walking to first period from the parking lot). “But, um, if you just happened to show up at my house at six o’clock on Saturday, I wouldn’t say no to driving up to Port Angeles.”

“Well,” Emmett says, his voice lower and a little rougher than usual, “if I just happen to show up at your house at six o’clock on Saturday, I’ll want to drive in my car. Deal?”

“Deal,” I agree, and we shake on it. I try to pretend that my racing heartbeat is due to the adrenaline still left over from Coach Pornstache’s extra lap, and not because, as my hand gets lost in his huge, firm grip, I can feel Emmett pausing a moment before letting go.

* * *

If I’m feeling marginally more confident in myself and just the tiniest bit turned on when lunch finally arrives, Rosalie Hale is the exact opposite. I step one foot inside the cafeteria, and immediately my eyes stray to her- not because she’s looking even more drop-dead gorgeous than usual today (though I will admit that is typically the biggest factor in my gawking at her despite the fact she very obviously wants me dead), but because her entire body tenses up the second I come into view. We make eye contact for a second, and the shiver than runs down my spine is what I imagine to be the last sensation a doe feels before a lion sinks its teeth into her neck.

Unnerved, I decide to keep my distance from the Cullen table today. From where I warily sink onto an unoccupied bench, I see Emmett engaged in a hushed but seemingly furious conversation with her, complete with wild hand gesticulations and exasperated eye rolls until it finally culminates in her storming from the table. If it was humanly possible for steam to be coming out of her ears, she would’ve set off the sprinklers overhead.

I feel my shoulders come up to my ears. I still have no idea what I’ve done to offend her so grievously, but I’m getting a little sick of it. I’ve been on her shit-list from day one- honestly, I’ve been on everyone’s shit-list from day one, but it stings more coming from a girl who would put Megan Fox to shame. The little black-haired girl, Alice, catches me glancing their way and gives me a sympathetic shrug. If that’s the reaction Rosalie garners from her own sister, I’m loath to imagine how she acts when she’s forced to interact with somebody who isn’t in her immediate family.

Eager to take my mind off the fact that Rosalie’s outburst eerily aligns with my presence in the same room as her, I look over at Jessica’s table. She and Lauren are sitting next to each other, but their laughter rings high and artificial over the clamor of the cafeteria, and when she spots me across the way, she presses her index and middle fingers together, up to her head, and jerks her neck backwards as though she’s blasted her skull off. I press my lips together to avoid smiling as I turn my attention over to my sketchbook.

I’m in the middle of sketching a cartoon Rosalie aggressively pointing a finger-gun at the viewer when I hear a short cough above me. Looking up, I’m confronted with the same security guard who caught me smoking in the truck last week. He seems as pleased to see me as I am to see him.

“Principal wants you,” he tells me, voice gruff. “Come on.”

As if it’s not humiliating enough to be escorted by the security guard out of the cafeteria, Lauren sticks her leg out as I walk past her table, because evidently she’s under the impression that we’re in some kind of cheesy ‘80s movie and she feels compelled to take up Heather Chandler’s mantle, and the only reason why I don’t completely topple over onto the filthy cafeteria floor is because the security guard grabs the back of my shirt before I can fall.

We exit the cafeteria amidst peals of laughter- granted, mostly from Lauren, but still. My face is as red as a tomato by the time we finally arrive at the principal’s office, who’s waiting for me at his desk with the expression that all adults wear when they’re trying to seem concerned and in reality want to beat your ass up for making their day more complicated.

“Ms. Swan,” says Principal McGowan in greeting, and I can’t help but cringe as I slide into the seat in front of him. “How has your first day back to school been so far?”

“Fine,” I say warily. “As far as I know, I haven’t done anything wrong yet. Why am I in here?”

Principal McGowan and the security officer- who’s still hovering behind me like an irritating fly- exchange a glance. The principal steeples his fingers and leans forward across the desk, close enough that I can see the delicate crowfeet lining his eyes.

“We have been informed by a… a concerned individual about your alarming habits outside of school, and I’d like to discuss them with you before they become a problem. Drinking and doing drugs is serious business, Ms. Swan, and we don’t commend people to do so either on or off campus.”

I stare at him like he’s grown a second head.

“I don’t drink,” I tell him, crossing my arms across my chest. It’s true, too- the last time I ingested anything remotely illegal, I was fifteen and at an upperclassman’s awful end-of-the-year party, in which three couples came out totally estranged from each other. Since then, I haven’t had much time to do anything except sob profusely in between watching bad reality TV and doing homework. “Who’s this ‘concerned individual’ you speak of, huh?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” says Principal McGowan smoothly, but I feel the certainty rise up in my chest the longer I look at him.

“It was Rosalie, wasn’t it?” I ask quietly, recalling how quickly she’d stormed out of the cafeteria the moment I stepped inside. It was either her or Lauren, anyway- and Lauren already got the instant gratification she was craving by humiliating me in front of everybody. “Rosalie Hale told you I was binge-drinking or something?”

“Like I said,” Principal McGowan said, his voice far more stern this time, “we’re not at liberty to say. Regardless of who informed us, we’re very concerned about this behavior of yours. It sets a precedent, you see- smoking, drinking… we’re a small town, Ms. Swan. We don’t have rowdy teen parties or drug overdoses here, and that’s the way I’d like to keep it.”

I say nothing, only glare at him as coldly as I can manage from across the desk. He sighs, rubbing a hand over his shiny bald head, and I can’t help but feel the tiniest bit sorry for him. It’s not his fault he has the worst imaginable job in the world- if I had to oversee the lives of several hundred high school kids, I would’ve offed myself years ago.

Still, that doesn’t make my wanting to strangle him any less intense when he says, “We’d like you to submit to a drug test. To alleviate our concerns, you see.”

“No,” I say immediately- growl it, more like, but Principal McGowan doesn’t seem cowered. “You can’t force me to. I know my rights.”

Actually, I have no idea whether they can force me to or not, but I’d rather be assertive and wrong than show that I’m in any way impacted by Principal McGowan’s unwavering gaze and steepled fingers.

“This isn’t a movie, Ms. Swan,” He says, and I can tell he’s barely suppressing an eye roll as he speaks, which seems totally unfair. _I’m_ the one who’s supposed to roll my eyes dramatically in this situation, not him.

“We can’t force you to take a drug test- not on the word of one student whose name I will _not_ be sharing,” he adds, when I open my mouth to speak. I frown at him as he speaks, upset that I'm apparently so easy to read. “But we can, however, make you speak with your counselor during nutrition for the rest of the school year.”

He’s got me, and the bastard knows it. I would rather get my teeth knocked in than have to talk to my guidance counselor until graduation. As it is, taking a drug test is only slightly less mortifying, but they’re backing me into a rock and a hard place. I don’t really have much of a choice when I finally, reluctantly nod my head in acquiescence.

“Excellent decision,” Principal McGowan says, giving me a wide smile that shows a gap in his teeth where somebody must've knocked out a tooth years before, probably when he was being as insufferable as he is now. “You’ll go to the nurse’s office immediately to provide a urine sample. My sincere thanks for complying, Ms. Swan, even if you don’t see the need.”

I have to physically restrain myself from reaching over to throttle him when I finally stand up from my chair.

The rest of the day seems to go by in a blur. I have only one thing on my mind throughout fourth, fifth, and sixth period, and it’s that Rosalie Hale has it out for me, and I have absolutely no idea why. I’ve said nothing to offend her- I’ve said nothing at all, period. But I am going to say something now.

As soon as the bell rings after sixth, I all but sprint to the school parking lot, nearly knowing down a poor underclassmen as I stumble down the steps leading outside. I can see Emmett and his brothers heading to their car, but no sign of Rosalie or Alice anywhere.

“Emmett!” I yell, causing several heads to swivel in my direction. I ignore them as I hurry over to where Emmett and his brothers have paused near their car. I can feel my heart thumping, hard and angry, as I finally reach them.

“Where is she?” I ask, my voice low, and Emmett glances over at Edward and Jasper, who are awkwardly standing beside him with their eyes flickering between my face and his. “Where’s Rosalie?”

“She doesn’t have a sixth period,” Emmett says finally, looking back at me with a neutral expression on his face. “Can I ask why you need to talk to her?”

“Because she’s shit-talking me to the principal, that’s why,” I snap, feeling myself get even angrier than before. “She told him that she saw me drinking and shooting up _ketamine_ or whatever, and I had to take a drug test. A fucking-“ I stop myself. To my humiliation, tears are springing in my eyes, like they always do when I’m this angry, and I have to turn away to collect myself. Breathing hard, I stare at the ground as I say, “Tell me why she hates me so much.”

“Rosalie doesn’t hate you,” Emmett says immediately. Beside him, Edward lets out a low snort, but I ignore him as I incredulously stare up at Emmett.

“How can you say that?” I demand, my hands balling into fists at my sides. “You know how she reacts whenever I’m near. She couldn’t get out of the cafeteria fast enough today when I showed up, and you’re going to tell me she doesn’t want me dead for whatever reason?”

“Bella,” says Jasper, and his voice is so quiet and subdued compared to my increasingly rising voice that I feel immediately chastised. “Breathe.”

Against my better judgment, I breathe, and am immensely surprised to find that it does make the anger ebb, if only a little.

“Sorry,” I mumble finally, after an uncomfortable silence. I can feel my face beginning to turn crimson for the second time in the past few hours, and I know that, when I get home, I’m going to press something sharp and cold against my skin in the same vein as Sweeney Todd. “Sorry. I’m just- I don’t know what’s going on, or what I did to offend her, and you don’t even want to know how embarrassing it was when I had to explain to the nurse why I was giving her a cup of my own-“

I stop myself before I can say anything more. Shaking my head at myself, I turn around to shuffle back to my car like a prisoner heading to the gallows, and that’s when I see her. Rosalie. She’s standing across the parking lot, just staring at me, and though she’s far enough that I can’t make out individual features, I can see that her fists are balled up so tightly that her knuckles are turning white.

“I thought you said that she doesn’t have a sixth!” I exclaim accusingly, turning back to Emmett. He looks more concerned than I’ve ever seen him, forehead creased as he looks past my shoulder at Rosalie.

“She doesn’t,” He says grimly, before glancing down at me, eyes full of some uninterpretable emotion that makes me feel a bit like I’ve been marked for utter death. “I have to go deal with this, Bella. You- you should go. I’ll see you on Saturday, alright?”

Then, before I can say anything, he and his brothers are walking away, and all I can do is watch their receding backs, before a huge truck suddenly passes by. When it finally passes, the Cullens have disappeared, Rosalie included, and I’m left staring stupidly at the places they occupied just several seconds before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate the fact that we're quarantined but also it's making me more productive than I've been in months lmao


	6. Chapter 6

Emmett pulls up in my driveway on Saturday just as I nearly light myself on fire.

I’ve been idly playing with the lighter for about fifteen minutes now as I lay on my bed, passing my fingers through the very bottom of the flame, quick enough for it not to burn. It’s probably a reckless habit, considering my track record with “things that can potentially cause death or moderate to severe injuries,” but before this I had listened to every single record of Mom’s, twice, watched two and a half movies on VHS downstairs before the player suddenly stopped working, and impulsively made myself four peanut butter and banana sandwiches, two of which I threw away after half-heartedly nibbling on the crusts and the other two of which I set aside for Charlie, who is now avoiding the house like the plague.

Like there’s a victim of the plague inside, more like. He’s been gone all afternoon- he claimed he had mountains of paperwork waiting for him at the police station, but in reality I know it’s because there’s a miasma radiating from me everywhere I go in the house. I’ve been in a foul mood for the past week following the Urine Sample Incident- which turned out clean as I knew it would, as far as piss can be clean-, and though I know that it’s not fair to Charlie, I’ve been slamming doors and lapsing into moody silences like a sullen twelve-year-old every time he attempts to talk to me about school. Or worse, about drugs. Principal McGowan informed him over the phone exactly why I had been handing over my piss for the past week, and Charlie proceeded to lecture me for an hour about the prevalent dangers of falling into a meth or cocaine addiction (“not to mention how expensive it is,” he added. I think he was trying to be funny).

He took away the rest of Mom’s cigarettes, too, which he found at the bottom of my underwear drawer (which I thought was particularly sneaky of me, but guess not). I thought that was a little unfair- I don’t actually enjoy smoking all that much; mostly, I’d been keeping them as a memento of Mom, but I didn’t think that argument would go over well. Besides, I didn’t want to give him reason to search the rest of my room and find my lighter, so I forced myself to keep quiet as he very purposefully dumped the cigarettes into the toilet.

 _It's a good thing he didn’t find the lighter_ , I think now. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing that really drums up any interest for me anymore is indulging in habits I secretly thought were very cool and edgy when I was in middle school but are actually painfully mundane when I’m doing them, and apparently, that involves accidentally putting my pinkie too high on the flame and singing the very top of my nail.

“Fuck,” I hiss as I bring my pinkie to my lips, suddenly red-hot and throbbing, and that’s when I hear a honk downstairs. Blearily, I get up from my bed and walk over to my window, where I see Emmett leaning against his absurdly large Jeep, waving up at me.

I curse silently as I tear off my pajama pants and grab the first pair of jeans I can find, before running to the bathroom to put my pinkie under some cold water. I hadn’t expected Emmett to show up at all, honestly- he and Rosalie have been ditching class for the past week, but besides that, I thought he’d be fairly turned off by the prospect of hanging out with the girl who chewed him out in the middle of the school parking lot. Turns out that he either has extremely poor taste in judgment, or he wants a front-row seat to the shitshow that’s about to unfurl as I trip over the cracked Port Angeles asphalt, because when I go back to my bedroom and take another tiny peek out my window, he’s still leaning halfway out the car, still staring up at me, his grin eased into something softer and sweeter.

I sigh. Being in the house is depressing as hell; both Charlie’s presence and his absence feels suffocating, and though I haven’t really prepped myself to go on an expedition to Port Angeles with the most devastatingly attractive boy I’ve ever laid eyes on, or to orchestrate a “surprise” meeting with Jessica, Angela, and Lauren, _or_ to be convincing enough in my interactions with Emmett to give off the sense that we knew each other far intimately than we did, I still can’t help but feel a tendril of excitement lance through me as I bound down the stairs and close the front door behind me.

“Nice shirt,” says Emmett, a wry smile on his lips, and I look down to realize that I’m still wearing my pajama shirt, a long-sleeved Mickey Mouse abomination Mom got for me four years ago from our one and only trip to Disneyland. The blood rushes to my face so fast it leaves me a little light-headed.

“Oh my god,” I mutter, wishing it was thirty minutes ago and I was still blissfully unconscious on my bed. “Let me go back and ch-“

“No, wait,” Emmett says, and then takes a step closer. I tense as he raises his hand, very slowly so I can see what he’s intending, and undoes the top button of my Mickey Mouse shirt. Then he brings both hands to either shoulder and attempts, futilely, to pop the felt collar, a move which makes me burst into abrupt peals of laughter.

“There,” he says, grinning as I wipe tears of mirth from my eyes. “Now we match.”

If by “match,” he means “contrast to the point of absurdity,” then he’s right. He’s wearing a tight-fitting tee, tucked tastefully inside a pair of Levi’s that are five thousand percent more expensive and fashionable than my own pair, gone soft from years of wear and tear and a small hole near the crotch that I’m aware of at all times. 

Still, he looks so proud of himself for sprucing up my outfit, I stop myself from refuting him and instead clamber inside the passenger seat of his car.

“I honestly didn’t think you’d come today,” I blurt out as he gets into the car. “I mean, you haven’t been in school for, like, a week.”

Emmett raises an eyebrow at me as he throws the gear shift into reverse, pulling out of the driveway so quickly it gives me whiplash.

“My, my, Bella,” He says, in that teasing voice I’ve come to recognize as the voice he uses before he says something mildly infuriating. “Have you been keeping tabs on my school attendance record?”

And though I’m loathe to give him the reaction he craves, I still can’t help but sputter as he drives down the street at a breakneck speed.

“Of course not,” I protest, sounding unconvincing even to my own ears. “It’s just- man, I don’t know. I was worried about you.”

This time, both of his eyebrows go up.

“I thought maybe Rosalie had been chewing you out all week long,” I amend hastily, and he huffs out a laugh at that.

“She has,” He says, his tone suddenly lascivious, “although not in the way you’re thinking.”

“Wh- oh, _gross_ ,” I groan. “You sure you’re not a twelve-year-old boy in an eighteen-year-old body?”

Emmett doesn’t give me a verbal response to that, only grins so widely I can see his canines. I take a deep breath and turn to face him fully.

“But, um, seriously, I’m sorry if I caused anything between you and Rosalie,” I say, as earnestly as I can muster. And it’s the truth, honest to God; Rosalie might hate my guts for no reason, but I still don’t want to be the reason why she directs all her animosity towards Emmett.

“Why would you be the reason Rosalie and I are fighting?” Emmett asks, and I can’t tell if he’s purposefully playing dumb or not. We lapse into an uncomfortable silence before I finally reach over and turn on the radio.

It’s OutKast.

“I love this song!” We exclaim at the same time. I laugh in surprise, and the discomfort that had begun to permeate in the air immediately dissipates. We spend the rest of the car ride over to Port Angeles singing terribly, and when he finally pulls up into curbside parking outside a kitschy New Age bookshop, I can’t help but wish the car ride had been a little longer.

Emmett’s out the door and opening mine before I can blink, and I can’t help but grin at his wildly unnecessary gallantry as I get to my feet. The city is small and tidy, nothing like the mock-Phoenix downtown I was expecting on the car ride over, and we’ve barely begun to walk down the street before we hear familiar voices heading our way.

“And so then I was like, ‘No, Mom, I _don’t_ want to miss the Kelly Clarkson concert I’ve been looking forward to for _months_ just because you want me to take the dog to the vet,” says Jessica, leading Angela and Lauren out of a nearby clothing store. Emmett and I make eye contact, and before I can move, he’s suddenly bracing himself against the wall beside me, his forearm coming over my head as he leans so close to me that I can see little flecks of amber in his eyes.

“Quick,” he murmurs, eyes sparkling, “laugh like I said something funny.”

It's a move so contrived, so cliché, that I can’t help but laugh out loud, even as I note that he smells like Johnson’s baby shampoo and that the corners of his mouth crease with twin dimples as he smiles down at me. When I look over his broad shoulders, I can see Jessica’s face lighting up as she spots us.

“I think that’s Bella!” I hear her tell the others, barely containing the glee in her voice as they come near. Emmett looks around in surprise, taking his arm off the wall, and the mingled relief and disappointment that courses through me is alarmingly potent as he steps away. “Hey, Bella! What are you guys doing here?”

She sounds like a middle school actor rehearsing her lines for the first time, but Angela and Lauren don’t seem to notice as they gawk at us. Angela recovers faster than Lauren, giving me a small smile and a little wave in greeting. I smile back, but it wilts when I see the expression on Lauren’s face. If looks could kill, I’d be dead by the time they reach us.

“Oh, just window shopping,” Emmett says innocently, gesturing to the nearest display window, which just happens to feature a mannequin dressed in a salacious red bra-and-thong combo. I resist my urge to knock myself unconscious against the brick wall of the store as Angela and Lauren silently stare in varying degrees of shock and horror, respectively.

Jessica, meanwhile, looks like she’s barely resisting the urge to jump up and down, grinning wildly at us as she adjusts the shopping bags on either arm.

“Do you guys wanna join us? We were just about to go grab lunch.”

“Jess, seriously?” Lauren hisses, tugging at her arm, but she bats her off absentmindedly, not taking her eyes off me.

“Uh, we’re goo-“ Jessica gives me a Look, and I immediately switch tactics. “You know what? Sure. Why not.”

“I’ll just watch you guys eat,” Emmett says, a smile playing on his lips. “Rose is doing a diet right now, and I’m doing it with her in solidarity.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lauren says snidely as we begin walking down the street. “Does she know you’re hanging out with Bella right now?”

Emmett flashes a wicked grin in her direction.

“Rose doesn’t get very jealous,” He says, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to avoid laughing. He and I both know very well that Rosalie Hale is as territorial as a lioness, but Lauren must not, if the worry lines that suddenly crease her forehead have anything to say.

We eat dinner inside a Mom-and-Pop diner. True to his word, Emmett doesn’t touch a thing, not even the chili cheese fries Angela offers him, which is a little surprising to me- Emmett is the very definition of a chili cheese fry guy-, but I can’t really blame him. No matter how shitty Rosalie acts, if she wanted me to do an all-liquid diet with her, I probably would. I’ve come to the realization in the past few days that my dignity is shot to shit whenever I’m with anybody even minutely attractive, hence why I find myself sitting at a booth where a child most definitely threw up on multiple occasions, eating a lukewarm hamburger while Lauren glares daggers at me when Angela and Jessica aren’t looking.

“Is the Mickey Mouse pajama shirt supposed to be ironic?” She asks testily, and I immediately feel the urge to defend the ugliest shirt in existence as I accidentally drip some more ketchup onto it.

“I only wear Mickey Mouse pajama shirts with the utmost sincerity,” I tell her. Before I can ask if the tank top from Justice she’s wearing is supposed to revert her back to a more innocent time when she didn’t soak up internalized misogyny like a sponge, Jessica says, “So, Emmett, how exactly did you and Bella meet? She never really went into details.”

“Oh, it was your standard meet-cute,” says Emmett airily, slinging an arm ever-so-casually over my shoulder. “She called Coach Miller a sex addict and we watched the freshmen attempt to run the mile.”

Angela shakes her head in sympathy.

“I can’t believe you have to do P.E. in senior year,” She asks, carefully picking the tomatoes out of her cheeseburger. “There should be a law against that.”

I open my mouth to agree with her, before I catch Lauren’s eye and instead, slowly and deliberately, lean back against Emmett.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say lightly. “It’s better with Emmett around.”

He says nothing, but I can tell he’s grinning by the way Lauren’s face turns a bright, splotchy red. Jessica, witnessing this exchange, doesn’t even pretend not to be elated by it.

“Let’s see a movie after dinner,” She says eagerly. “I heard they’re playing Napoleon Dynamite at the theater on Plymouth- you guys wanna come see?”

“There’s also Hard Candy,” Angela offers. “That one has Ellen Page. Oh, and there’s Brokeback Mountain- I think that one’s about cowboys, or something…?”

“Why don’t we watch both? We’ll just pay for one movie and movie hop the rest of the night,” Emmett suggests innocently, and I can’t help but smile, because I just know he’s going to do that thing where there’s a carton of popcorn in my lap, and we’re both reaching for it, and our hands touch and it’s all very romantic and cutesy, until I remember that A) He’s on a diet with Rosalie, B) Rosalie is his girlfriend, and honestly, if he had bad enough taste to try and cheat on the most beautiful girl in all of Washington with _me_ , my interest in him would wane considerably, C) whatever flirty undertones I’m getting in my conversations with him is linked solely to making Lauren seethe with jealousy, and D) I have got to stop conflating real life with romantic comedies. Even if Emmett sometimes feels like a romantic comedy come to life.

I feel three pairs of eyes on me, and I sigh before nodding my acquiescence. This is going to be a long night.

* * *

When we get back home, I can feel my eyelids drooping like there's little cartoon weights attached to the ends of them. The movies were surprisingly (disappointingly?) platonic, but Emmett made up for it by sitting close enough to the edge of his seat that our thighs were touching, not a lot but not very little, either, and I was more hyperaware of the fact that we were touching than the ranchers exchanging tender declarations of love on the screen for most of the night. And then there was that point in Napoleon Dynamite where he leaned over and whispered something no doubt witty and charming into my ear, but the words were as muffled as if he had been speaking underwater compared to the very distinct feeling of his lips brushing the shell of my ear...

Fuck. I'll deal with whatever this is in the morning, but for now, I'm so exhausted I'm half-tempted to ask Emmett if he'd carry me up to my room. 

"Thanks for tonight," I say instead, forcing my eyes open as I turn to face him. "It was f- more fun than I was expecting. Even though you nearly killed us both on the ride home."

Emmett does the grin that precludes his most infuriating statements before proving my point by saying, "Translation: you are such a cool dude, Emmett, and I think your Jeep is so much better than my shitty truck but I refuse to admit it because I have to maintain my air of aloofness."

"You're right," I respond, and he blinks so rapidly I can't help but laugh a little. "Not about my truck being a piece of shit thing. But, uh, the rest. You're a cool guy. And-"

I take a deep breath.

"-and I know I don't show it well, but I really am glad that we're friends."

God. My heart's racing faster than it did when Coach Pornstache forced us to do the thirty-minute mile run last week. Using the "F" word makes me wildly uncomfortable at the best of times, and right now I feel the vague urge to roll open the window and throw up on the side of my driveway, although that might just be because of the two bags of popcorn I ate at the movie theater (Angela didn't want to finish hers). 

Emmett's eyes are so warm, I can feel them like a brand against my skin as he looks at me. 

"I know that we did all this so you wouldn't have to eat in the bathroom at lunch," He begins, "and so you could sit with Jessica and Angela and the others- but I want you to forget that for a minute and come sit with us instead."

A minute or two passes before I realize the “us” he’s referring to is him and his family. I laugh loudly at that, but falter when I realize he's not laughing with me. He looks more serious than I've ever seen him, actually. I stare at him incredulously.

"You're kidding."

"Why would I be kidding?" He asks, sounding a little frustrated, and I scoff in disbelief.

"Rosalie," I say, when it becomes apparent that he really is that oblivious. He sighs, and I kind of hate myself for how I can't look away from how his shirt tightens over his pectorals as he rubs the back of his neck.

"It'll be like exposure therapy for her," He says. "Look. You asked me why Rosalie hated you so much, and I didn't have a good answer to give you. But I do now. It's because she's jealous of you."

My eyes bug out so intensely, I'm worried for a second they'll pop right out of my head. I know without his reassurance that he doesn't mean she's jealous of me over him- Emmett has faults, but bad taste isn't one of them-, but the idea that Rosalie is jealous of me for any reason whatsoever is so insane, it feels a little blasphemous to even consider. 

"Rosalie Hale," I say, after it becomes apparent that he's waiting for a response, "is not jealous of _me._ If anything, I'm jealous of _her_. Either that or-"

I don't finish the rest of my sentence, which would've gone somewhere along the lines of, _I want her, despite the fact that she looks at me like I'm dirt under her shoe. Or maybe because of it._ Probably not the best thing to say to her adoring boyfriend, after all. 

Emmett just shakes his head.

"She is," He says insistently. "And she thinks that you- you have a gift that you're wasting."

I laugh, a little hysterically this time.

"Gift?" I repeat. "What gift? My _art,_ which, by the way, is not art at all-"

"That's not what I mean," Emmett mutters. "It's... hard to explain. Just- Bella, you can sit with whoever you want. But it would mean... a _lot_... to me if you came to sit with us on Monday. Really."

He looks at me so earnestly and so tenderly that I feel like I can't be held, in good conscious, responsible for the next words that come out of my mouth.

"Fine. But I'm not making any promises beyond more than one day."

Emmett lets out a whoop that feels a little much for my lackluster response, but I can't help but smile anyway as he leans in for a quick hug. This close to him, he smells like the popcorn from the movie theater, and something discordantly sweeter underneath, like jasmine perfume or lavender shampoo...

I only barely stop myself from sniffing him like a creep as he pulls away. 

"You won't regret it, Bella, I promise," He says, smiling so wide I can see his canines. I'm still thinking about that smile as I step into the house and shut the door behind me. I fumble for the lights, and that's when I hear a yelp from the living room couch. Charlie lays there, wincing as the light forces itself into his retinas, and I wince in sympathy as I turn the lights back off.

"Sorry," I mutter. "I didn't think you'd be down here."

"I was waiting for you," He says, voice still gruff from sleep. "It's almost one A.M., Bella; I called you around seven times."

I wince for real this time as I check my Nokia. Sure enough, it blinks seven missed call notifications from Charlie- calls I missed because I had been out movie-hopping with Emmett and the others. Without telling Charlie.

"I'm sorry, Dad," I say, as sincerely as I can muster. "I completely forgot to call you, and my phone was off all night-"

"I was up waiting for you for hours-"

"I know, and I'm really, really sorry but we can talk about it in the morning," I say, one foot already on the staircase, eager to escape the impending lecture I know is coming up. 

"Bella-"

"I promise," I say, and bound up the stairs before he can say anything else. 

As I lay in bed, I hear him slowly, painstakingly get up from the couch, up the stairs, and to his bedroom before I hear the springs of his mattress squeak under his weight. For some reason, the sounds of him getting comfortable bring a sudden hot, wet rush of tears to my eyes. That, and the thought that I hadn't even spared him a thought throughout the entire night- too busy as I was attempting to manage my highly inappropriate crush on Emmett Cullen and making little jabs at Lauren whenever I could. Even in the dark of the living room, Charlie looked like a puppy who'd been kicked in the stomach by his owner as I blustered and fibbed through my excuses. I think about the look on his face, and then I reach over and clumsily open the drawer of my nightstand.

The lighter feels heavier in my hand than it had before, and when I press my finger against the flame, the pain feels brighter, more vibrant than it had before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bella's uhhh going thru it


	7. Chapter 7

I’ve been preparing a speech in the bathroom for forty-five minutes, but when I come downstairs in the morning and see Charlie sitting at the table in the kitchen, sipping his coffee, I abruptly forget everything I’d rehearsed.

Instead, I slide into the seat beside him, take a breath, and say, “If you want to ground me, I understand.”

“I don’t want to ground you, Bella,” Charlie says quietly, keeping his eyes trained on the black, grainy surface of his coffee. “It’s not you I’m upset at, anyway. It’s me.”

I blink at him.

“What? Why?”

He thinks about that for a while, keeping quiet for so long I don’t think he’s going to answer until the silence is broken by a deep, shuddery sigh. He turns his eyes to me then, and I cringe automatically. They’re bloodshot as hell, the bags under his eyes have bags underneath… he looks as though he hadn’t slept a wink last night.

“I look at you now,” he says, “and I see a stranger. And it’s my fault. I know I wasn’t around much when you were a kid- you stopped coming to Forks before you were out of middle school-, but maybe if I’d made more of an effort, maybe if I-“

“Dad,” I say, mildly horrified by this turn of events. “This is _not_ your fault. Whatever’s wrong with me isn’t because of you. It’s because of-“

I was about to say Mom, but I realize, just before my lips form the word, that it’s a lie. Mom might’ve spurred on the desire to claw my way out of my own skin, but it was always there, lying dormant inside me. All it took was the worst day of my life- and all the days that followed- to make me realize that the key to my own self-destructive tendencies had been inside me since I could remember.

But because I don’t want Charlie to carter me off to the psych ward at the hospital, I refrain from saying so. Instead, I finish lamely. “It’s nobody’s fault. I’m just… traumatized. The nurse at school- back in Arizona- said so.”

“I want to help you, Bella,” Charlie whispers, and, to my increasing horror, begins to cry. Quietly, no theatrics about it, his shoulders shaking with soft sobs as he puts his face in his hands. Helpless, my hands hover over him, unsure if I should put my arms around him or around myself, when he looks up again and my arms immediately fall to my sides.

“I’m sorry,” He mutters, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Sorry. It’s been- it’s been a long week. There’s been a string of murder cases coming in from the station for the past three weeks- all teenage girls-, and I just kept imagining y-“

He cuts himself off, but I stare at him.

“Teenage girls are being murdered?” I ask quietly.

“Not here,” Charlie says, downing the rest of his coffee before setting the mug back down on the table, gripping the handle tightly as he speaks. “Or, well, they were found here, but- none of the girls are from Forks. Most of them are from Amanda Park, or Clallam Bay, and since both of their police departments are smaller than ours…”

“You were assigned the case,” I finish, and he nods. I look down at where his hand is gripping the handle of the mug so tightly, his knuckles are turning white. “How were they killed?”

His head snaps up, and he looks at me, aghast.

“Bella, this is a gruesome subject-“

“I want to know,” I say stubbornly, crossing my arms over my chest as I lean back in the kitchen chair. “How were they killed?”

He sighs, rubbing at his eyes, and a tendril of guilt lances through me. I promised myself I wouldn’t aggravate him further, and yet here I am, slowly but surely leading him to an early grave.

Before I can tell him that he doesn’t have to answer, he says, “Bite marks.”

“What?”

“They were lacerated, covered in various sizes of bite marks. They were bled dry. They thought it was random animal attacks at first, but animals don’t target the same demographic, with the same coloring, over and over again.”

There’s an awful feeling in the back of my head I vaguely register as the beginning of a day-long migraine. I’ve been having more of those since I moved here.

“What’s their coloring?” I hear myself asking, and he lets out another shuddery sigh.

“Brown hair,” He says, looking up at me. “Brown eyes. Pale skin. Slight build.”

It might not mean anything. It might just be a coincidence. But I have to ask anyway.

“The bite marks,” I say. “Did they identify what type of animal did them?”

When Charlie’s gaze meets mine, an awful shudder wracks through me. I already know the answer before he speaks.

“It wasn’t any sort of animal at all,” He tells me. “It was human.”

* * *

It’s crazy. _I’m_ crazy for thinking it. But my mind is racing as I pace across the backyard, the clouds above me dour and churning in a way I’ve come to recognize before a big thunderstorm. Facts: There has been a string of murders in the Forks area, all of them teenage girls with my coloring and build, all killed, somehow, by having been bled dry by human bite marks. Facts: The Cullens stick to themselves, for the most part. They all look similar despite being foster kids. Their foster parents are, somehow, only a handful of years older than they are. They don’t eat in school. Every single one of them is pale as snow, like there’s no blood circulating through their veins. Facts: Rosalie Cullen hates me for some undetermined reason, to the point where she can barely stand being in the same cafeteria as me without having to leave early. Despite the fact I never spoke a single word to her. Despite the fact that the closest I’d ever been to her had been several feet away from her lunch table.

God. If I wasn’t crazy before, I definitely am now. It’s ridiculous. Absurd. Vampires don’t exist. Or they do, but in musty old books dating back to the early 19th century. Or in mockumentaries from New Zealand. Not in real life, though. And most definitely not in Forks, the ass-end of Washington.

And yet what other possible explanation is there? Those girls were bled _dry_ for the past three and a half weeks, approximately when I first came to Forks. Those girls were found with human bite marks all over their bodies- and yet, Charlie said, none of the other accompanying signs of sexual assault. Bite marks. Bled dry. You do the math.

I groan quietly, grabbing fistfuls of my hair as I pace. I’d hung out with Emmett all day long yesterday- if he’d had any inclination that he wanted to tear out my throat throughout, he hid it well. And besides, do I even truly believe that Emmett Cullen, with his affinity for bad jokes and inclination for watching the freshmen make fools out of themselves in P.E., is a vampire?

 _Yes._ The realization hits me like a freight train. Yes, I do. He’s always freezing cold- I could feel the chill of his thigh pressing against mine through both of our jeans during the movies yesterday. He didn’t eat once, which he’d explained with the Rosalie-diet-solidarity thing and which, in hindsight, which no self-respecting jock of rippling biceps and a no doubt bottomless pit of a stomach would’ve agreed to. Unless none of the food we’d been eating had appealed to him. Unless it wasn’t food at all he’d been hungry for.

Didn’t he joke, once, about being able to lift the bleachers with one hand? What if he hadn’t been joking?

“I’m actually insane,” I mutter out loud, just to hear the sound of a human voice. “I’m going crazy. This is not normal.”

“I don’t know,” says a voice from the threshold of the back door. “I think speaking to yourself while walking in circles is totally normal. At least, I do it all the time.”

I look up, and there’s Jacob Black. The relief hits me so hard and so fast I almost stagger backwards, before I cross the backyard and throw my arms around his neck.

“What are you doing here?” I breathe, still clutching onto him as he tentatively wraps his arms around me.

“Sundays are when Dad and Charlie go on their fishing expedition,” He murmurs. “I asked if I could stay here while they went.”

“Thank God,” I say, pulling away finally. “I need you to tell me I’m not crazy.”

He blinks down at me.

“Okay,” He says, slowly. “You’re not crazy.”

“No, that’s not what I-“ I sigh, grabbing his hand. “Come with me.”

We go back inside the house. Billy and Charlie are still in the living room, wearing a matching pair of the most ridiculous bucket hats I’ve ever seen. Billy’s face splits into a warm smile when he sees me come in.

“Bella,” He says, voice booming. “I haven’t seen you in ages! How have you been?”

“Good, Billy, thanks,” I say, steadfastly not looking at Charlie as I lie through my teeth. At least I know I’m covered there- Charlie, unlike Mom, would never even think of gossiping about my latest fuck-up with her friends on a fishing expedition. Department store shopping. Whatever. “Jacob and I were just about to go upstairs.”

Billy wiggles his eyebrows somewhere behind me at this. I hear, rather than see, Jacob put his face into his hands.

“Well, be sure not to have too much fun,” He cracks, and Jacob lets out a low, disbelieving groan in response.

“Okay-bye-Dad-have-fun,” Jacob says under his breath, all but pushing me up the stairs. I barely have time to wave goodbye to Billy and Charlie before they’re out of sight and Jacob is opening the door to my bedroom, flopping on my bed like a dead fish as I shut the door behind us.

“So,” Jacob says, cracking one eye open to look at me as he lays on my duvet cover. “Why do you think you’re crazy?”

“What do you know,” I say slowly, taking a seat in the rocking chair facing the bed, “about the Cullens?”

A slight frown tugs at Jacob’s lips as he props himself up on his elbows.

“Why?” He asks guardedly, and I roll my eyes at him.

“Just answer the question, Jacob.”

“My dad hates them,” He says promptly. _Okay_ , I think. _This is good. We’re getting somewhere_.

“And why does your dad hate them?”

“Bella,” Jacob says, “whatever you’re trying to say, just say-“

“I think the Cullens are vampires,” I say in a rush. The words burst out of me uncontrollably, expulsing from my body like projectile vomit or something equally as nasty and unwanted and damning. “I think Rosalie’s been killing girls who look like me, and I think the Cullens are covering it up.”

Jacob stares for a long, long while. I can’t tell what thoughts are coursing through his head right now, only that they’re probably about how fast he can run to the door before I catch and axe-murder him, until he finally speaks.

“There were stories of people like the Cullens,” He says quietly, “dating back at least two centuries. My dad likes to tell them, sometimes. I don’t know what he’s told you, but-“

“He hasn’t told me _anything_ ,” I snap, frustrated. “I- I intuited this, okay? I know there’s something strange about them. Something bad.”

“You’ve been watching too many horror movies,” Jacob says, with a little laugh. When he sees the expression on my face, he becomes more somber, sitting up fully. “Bella, Bella, vampires aren’t real. Dad’s just superstitious. They’re in the same league as fairies, or- or mermaids. There might be something weird about the Cullens, but, hell, that’s probably just a side effect of inbreeding.”

That forces out a choked laugh from me.

“They’re foster kids.”

“That you know of,” He says, waggling his eyebrows exactly like Billy had. “C’mon- let’s go watch a movie or something- _no_ Dracula.”

I agree, albeit a little reluctantly, and follow him downstairs. 

The thunderstorm begins in earnest as we're watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, an afghan pulled over both of us as rain pelts the windows. I jump with each crackle of thunder, but my unease has more to do with the fact that, in a few hours, I'm going to get up for school, and I'm going to decide whether to sit with Jessica, Angela, Mike, and Eric, or with Emmett- Emmett, and Alice, and Edward, and Jasper, and Rosalie. The latter of whom may or may not be trying to kill me. All of whom may or may not be creatures of indeterminate origins, no matter what Jacob says. 

"I know," I say, as we're watching Clementine sit on the steps of the beach house in Montauk. "I'll cut myself just before lunch, and if Rosalie lunges at me across the cafeteria table, I'll know for sure whether I'm right or not."

Jacob stares at me, wide-eyed.

"Oh, just a little cut- don't give me that look. Quick and painless."

"Bella," He says very slowly, as though he's talking to a child, or perhaps someone mentally impaired, "if you really are right about the Cullens- and I'm not saying you are-, then drawing blood in front of them probably isn't the best way to go about exposing their- their _vampirism_ , or whatever."

"No, no, it's foolproof," I say eagerly, pausing the movie momentarily so I can turn around and face him. "They can't kill me with so many witnesses around. And if I go missing afterwards, then you'll know exactly what happened to me, and you can tell Charlie-"

"Why does it sound," Jacob interrupts, "like you're anticipating your own death?"

I make a face at him.

"I'm not," I protest, sounding unconvincing even to my own ears. "I'm just preparing myself for the worst case scenario. Completely different thing."

"Do I need to tell Charlie about this?" Jacob asks, his vowels clipped, and I freeze. He looks completely, utterly stone-faced, the corners of his lips tugging downwards as we look at each other. I feel a little shiver of panic make its way up my spine. The last thing I need is for Charlie to get involved in all of this before I have any proof to show for it. Forget locking me up in the psych ward- he'll be so ashamed, he'll have no choice but to lock me up in the attic for the rest of my life.

I'd prefer avoiding being Bertha Mason for as long as I can help it, and so I take a deep breath, and I say, "No, Jake. Please don't."

"Because if you're planning on hurting yourself for the sake of I don't know what-"

"I'm not," I say, turning back around so all he can see of me is my profile. "Let's just finish the movie, okay? I want to see what Joel does next."

But I have to admit to myself, later on that night, that Jacob might've been right, at least about one thing. I am highly anticipating the outcome that I'll be dead by the end of this. If I'm right- if the Cullens are vampires, if Rosalie really has been killing those girls to refrain from killing me-, then the best thing I could possibly do for everyone is to slit open my wrists and offer them up to her. No more teenage girls murdered in cold blood (no pun intended). No forcing a family- however inhuman- to move from their home so the townspeople don't come after them with pitchforks and torches. 

I let out a huffy little laugh when I realize that, even still, I'm lying to myself. Truth be told, I couldn't possibly care less about all of that. I'm selfish, I know, but this really is the best opportunity I'm going to get to escape Forks, once and for all. I've always been too much of a coward to ever truly plan out my own death- even after Mom's funeral, on the airplane, where for forty-five minutes I'd thought of nothing else but smashing open the window and pushing myself through it. At least this way, there's no planning necessary. Just, "Here you go, Rosalie. Bite the hand that feeds you. Please. If there's leftovers after you're done with me, Emmett can drink the rest of my blood, or maybe put it in a Tupperware container for breakfast tomorrow."

I think about this, over and over, until I finally drift off into an uneasy sleep. Uneasy because, as I toss and turn to find a better position, I get the feeling someone’s eyes are on the back of my head the whole while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for all those who haven't watched eternal sunshine i highly, highly recommend it. whoever decided that jim carrey and kate winslet needed to star in the hollywood version of an arthouse romance film together is a genius


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning- this chapter includes descriptions of suicidal ideation.

Whoever Gavin Hall is, the inside of the door of the third stall in the girl’s bathroom is calling him a major fucking douchebag.

I’m not sure who decided it should be a prerequisite to have at least two stalls be blocked up in the girl’s bathroom, and the third to have “MCKAYLA IS A SLUT” or some variation scratched across the inside of the door, but whoever it is meant to spite me specifically. I just wanted a safe, quiet place to have my anxiety attack, but the tampon half-flushed down the toilet in the stall beside mine has considerably distracted me from feeling the full breadth of emotions I should be feeling at the prospect of sitting with Emmett Cullen and his family at lunch.

I excused myself from class fifteen minutes before the bell. Jessica had been whispering to me in a low voice all period long about how she and Lauren got into this huge, blown-up fight after Emmett and I left on Saturday, and I’d barely listened as I fingered the razor inside my backpack, waiting for the pass to come back so I could make my escape to the bathroom.

And now that I’m here, I wish, with an intensity that frightens me, that I stayed home today and listened to Mom’s old records. Laying in my bed with some sweet, sorrowful Mclean song playing in the background as I stare up at ceiling of my bedroom would’ve been a far better backdrop for my freak-out than sitting in a bathroom stall, my only defense against the mycobacteria that’s most assuredly forming on the toilet seat below me being a tissue-thin sheet of plastic.

And I am _having_ a freak-out, don’t get me wrong. The nausea that triggered from the sight of the still-bloody tampon clogging the toilet in the next stall only lasts for a few minutes, and now there’s nothing to distract me from the fact that I am probably going to be walking to my death in less than half an hour.

It's not the blood that worries me- I’m only planning on cutting a very small patch of skin, something that’ll heal on its own before the day’s up. And I don’t think the Cullens- even Rosalie, whose self-control has been fraying at the edges for weeks-, would reveal themselves in the middle of a crowded cafeteria, besides. No, it’s the fact that I’m so oddly at peace about what’s going to happen afterwards that’s worrisome.

Here’s what’s going to happen.

I’ll head over to where Emmett and the others are sitting. I’ll ever so casually rest my bleeding hand on the table. They’ll stiffen but maintain a relatively calm disposure until I’m out of sight. Then they’ll discuss the undeniable fact that I most definitely was attempting to bait them, and Rosalie will- as I imagine she’s been trying for the past several weeks- succeed in convincing them that I need to be taken out before I expose their entire family. Later that night, I’ll leave my bedroom window open for her convenience, and I’ll lay back as she sucks the blood out of me like Capri-Sun through a straw- but not before I tell her to hide my body so Charlie won’t find me in the morning.

And that’ll be that. The Short and Untimely Life of Bella Swan, come to its conclusion. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to pull out Mom’s old records and stare at my bedroom ceiling before Rosalie creeps in through the window, but whatever the semantics, my time left is limited. A handful of hours at most, maybe. I’ve never been more aware of my heart beating inside my chest, and I’ve never been more conscious of how okay I am with that stopping entirely.

I come back to class exactly a minute before the bell, and slip away from before either Mrs. Monroe can lecture me or Jessica can drag me over to her table, chattering animatedly away all the while. I take a deep breath before I step through the doors of the cafeteria, shoving my hands in my pockets so nobody can see how badly they’re shaking (that, and the blood that’s beginning to seep through my sleeve. I may have cut just a _little_ harder than I intended).

And then there’s Emmett, waving eagerly at me from across the cafeteria. I step forward, teeth chattering with adrenaline as I come closer and closer- and then stop abruptly. Rosalie isn’t there. Or Jasper, for that matter. Even three of them is still far more intimidating than it has any right to be, but they looked dwarfed by the lack of the Hale twins in their presence.

“Hi, Bella!” says Alice, beaming at me like we’re long-lost buddies. “Come sit by me.”

“Uh, hi,” I say, completely floored as I slide into the seat beside her. Edward quirks his lips at me over a thick, leather-bound book in what I assume is his interpretation of a smile, but Emmett isn’t nearly as reserved- he immediately slings an arm around my shoulders as soon as my ass makes contact with the seat.

“Catch,” He says lightly, and though he’s sitting literally right next to me I still manage to drop the apple he throws my way onto my lap. Hint one that things aren’t going as I planned is Rosalie and Jasper’s absence. Hint two is the very obvious fact that Emmett, Alice, and Edward’s trays are all laden with food.

“Are you going to finish that?” Alice asks brightly, and before I can speak, she grabs the apple off my lap and takes a bite so huge, I can see her uvula as she chews. As I silently gawk at her, I notice in my peripheral vision that Edward’s doing the same, absently nibbling on a carrot while he props open his book with one hand.

Vampires can’t eat human food. I hold onto this fact even as Emmett begins shoveling meatloaf into his mouth as though he hasn’t eaten in days.

“So,” says Alice, her voice muffled as she speaks, “Emmett tells me you’re an artist?”

I flush, glaring at Emmett. He gives me a half-heartedly apologetic shrug in response, too busy licking the gravy from his fingers to pay much attention to us, which I think is kind of rich, considering the fact he’s the one who invited me here in the first place.

“Not really,” I mutter, turning back to Alice. “Not at all, honestly. Just something to do in my spare time. Uh, where’s Rosalie and Jasper?”

“Sick with the flu,” Edward answers, glancing up from his book, and another red flag goes up inside my head. Vampires don't get the flu. We lapse into an awkward silence before I finally blurt out, “So, did you guys hear about the murders around Forks these past few weeks?”

I wince even as the words escape my lips. _Subtle,_ I chastise myself, wishing I could slide down my seat as they exchange seemingly bewildered glances.

There’s yet another incredibly awkward silence, before Alice, with a wrinkled brow, asks, “Uh, what murders?”

“Girls our age,” I say. “They all look the same. All of them-“ and here I insert a meaningful pause- “died of blood loss.”

“Blood loss?” Edward repeats, raising his eyebrows. “Were they lacerated, or-“

“Bite marks,” I interrupt, trying not to sound too eager. “ _Human_ bite marks. On their necks.”

“What, like a vampire?” Emmett asks, a little too jovially than the situation warrants. I find myself immediately tensing at the V-word, watching each of their faces carefully, but none of them so much as twitch. I nod slowly, attempting to stamp down the disappointment rising in my throat before I speak.

“Yeah,” I mutter, looking down at my lap. “Charlie told me about it yesterday, but I didn’t know if it was, like, a well-known thing, or…”

“This is the first I’ve ever heard of it,” Emmett says, and when I look up at him, his concern is so potent that I can almost see it coming off him in waves. I can’t tell if I resent it or crave it.

He attempts a smile when he sees me staring at him.

“Well,” he says, leaning against the back of his chair, “if you see anyone coming at you with their fangs bared, you’ll know who it is.”

“Emmett,” Alice murmurs, watching my face with knowing eyes. “Not funny.”

This time, I’m prepared when the horrifically pregnant pause comes around, but it lasts for a solid twelve seconds before Edward finally takes pity on me and clears his throat. “So, Bella, you draw? Do you have any of your pieces with you?”

“If by ‘pieces’ you mean crumpled-up notebook paper, then yeah,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck uncomfortably. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Hell, Alice doesn’t even so much as blink when I discreetly put my bleeding hand on the table. Not as in I roll up my sleeve and shout, "Behold!" or anything along those lines, but surely she, or Emmett, or Edward, would've been able to smell it by now. _What the fuck is happening?_

“I wish I could draw,” Alice sighs dreamily, oblivious to my intense stare, “but I don’t have the patience for it. Rosalie’s a fantastic portraitist, though.”

“And yet,” Emmett says to me in a stage whisper, “she refuses to draw my portrait. Can you imagine that?”

“Because the only way you’ll allow her to paint you is if it’s sitting astride a lion in the middle of the Sahara Desert, wearing nothing but a red cape and swimming goggles,” Edward says dryly. Emmett flicks a little meatloaf at him in retaliation, landing smack in the center of his nose, and it would be funny if I wasn’t in the middle of quietly losing my mind. _Nothing_ is panning out the way I planned it. They’re eating awful cafeteria food, they don’t know anything about the murders (and surely at least one of the three would give themselves away otherwise, right?), they’re talking about Emmett’s dick hanging out while he sits aside a lion, they seem oblivious to the fact that my hand is bleeding through the sleeve of my sweater…

Shit. That is actually a lot of blood, now that I’m looking closer at it. I hastily pull the sleeve of my jacket over the cut, but it’s definitely going to need some Neosporin soon.

“Can we see your drawings, Bella?” Edward asks, bringing me back to reality, and I blink dazedly at him.

“Oh. Uh, sure,” I say, reaching into my backpack for my sketchbook.

I pull up nothing.

Frowning, I pull my backpack into my lap and rummage through my backpack, taking out my binders and notebooks twice in a row, but my sketchbook isn’t there. I stare at the void where it should be, anxiety rising in my chest. I never take it out of my backpack.

“What’s wrong?” Alice asks, and my head snaps up. Her brows are furrowed with worry, eyes wide with concern, and the urge to bang my head against the table over and over again grows tenfold when she gently touches my shoulder. It’s such a sweet little gesture, such a _human_ gesture, that I feel my throat closing up. This isn’t supposed to be happening. What was supposed to be happening is that I’d expose them for being-

For being fictional creatures that I’ve deluded myself into believing in for some godamned reason. 

“My sketchbook’s missing,” I manage to get out past the lump in my throat. “I’m going to check the lost and found to see if it’s there.”

“Do you want me to come w-“

“No,” I say, cutting Emmett off. I have the feeling that being around people- especially a Cullen, especially _him_ \- isn’t exactly the greatest idea right now. “No, it’s okay- just, um- I’ll see you tomorrow. Sorry for bailing so early.”

“It’s fine,” He says, though the deep furrow between his brows suggests otherwise. Still, neither he, nor Alice, nor Edward make a move to stop me from leaving, and so I get up on shaky legs, shoulder my backpack, and make my way to the exit of the cafeteria- but not before someone tugs on my sleeve.

I look down dazedly, and there’s Jessica, her hand fisted into the fabric of my sweater as she leans bodily across the cafeteria table.

“Did the Cullens invite you to sit with them?” She demands, her tone one of complete and utter awe rather than the irritation I was expecting at the fact that I ditched her after she’d basically invited me back into the fold (not that I was ever really in it to begin with, but still).

I surreptitiously attempt to tug my sleeve back, but her grip is as unyielding as iron, and I begin to panic a little when I realize that the blood’s beginning to drip, very visibly, down my wrist. She doesn’t seem to notice- her gaze is still trained solely on my face, as though she’s seeing me for the very first time-, but behind her, I see Angela’s eyes widen in realization. Not good.

“Jessica,” I say, attempting to stamp down the panic in my voice without much success, “I promise I’ll tell you all about it later, just- please, I have to go-“

“Did Edward mention me? Like, at all?” Jessica asks eagerly, and her grip, if anything, tightens harder. “What did you guys talk about? Why aren’t Rosalie and Jasper at school today, anyway?”

I look past her where Angela is staring at me, eyes wide as she follows the trickle of blood down my wrist. I’m not above silently begging her with my eyes to save me, and, thank God, she finally leans over to touch Jessica’s shoulder once it’s clear Jessica’s not going to let go anytime soon.

“Jess,” she says quietly, “Let her go. She’ll tell you everything later, anyway- you’re sitting with us tomorrow, right?”

I shoot her an immensely grateful look as Jessica’s eyes scan my face. Sighing, she releases her iron-fisted grip on my jacket.

“Fine,” she grumbles. “But you better-“

I don’t hear the rest of her sentence, because I turn on my heel the second she releases me and soccer-mom walk the rest of the way out of the cafeteria, only barely managing to get past the threshold before I have to duck into an adjacent hallway. There’s a hysterical sob catching in my throat as I slide down the wall, staring at the cut on my hand.

I am such a fucking loser.

It shouldn’t surprise me, but here I am anyway, being shocked by the most basic facts of life. The sky is blue, grass is green, and Bella Swan is a loser with a capital L. No sane, normal person would register a pretty girl disliking them for no reason as her and her family being bloodthirsty monsters- or, for that matter, coming to the conclusion that the girl’s dislike of them is so potent, she’d go so far as to murder people who resembled them for the sheer hell of it. And yet that’s exactly what I did.

I wanted to put a meaning behind something that was totally meaningless, as it turns out. Something being believing Rosalie Hale and her family are descendants of Dracula without having even a shred of veritable proof, and also Rosalie Hale attempting to ruin my academic record because my inherent unlikability ranges from her to Lauren Mallory and all those in between, and also having literally no friends at school to turn to because of said inherent unlikability, and also having Mom’s last gift to me disappearing suddenly and without any warning, and also girls who resemble me, turning up dead in the woods, and also walking into the bathroom one morning and seeing Mom, dead in the bathtub-

I’m glad the hallway is empty, because the sob that erupts from my throat is loud enough to send reverberations up my spine. I sit there, slumped and sobbing on the floor of the corridor because I feel too lightheaded to head over to the girl’s restroom and have my long-awaited mental breakdown in relative private, for what feels like ages, until I finally rouse myself enough to get to my feet and head over to the nurse’s office for a band-aid.

She coos over me, assuming that my tear-streaked face has to do more with the fact that I apparently cut so deeply into my hand that I’m going to leave a scar rather than whatever jumbled emotional turmoil’s going on inside me, and tells me to lay down on the cot until the bell rings.

As I lay there on the thick plastic wrap, staring at the Garfield clock on the end table beside me, a plan begins to formulate inside my head. Rather, it’s the continuation of the rudimentary plan I’d formulated, back when I, in full earnestness, believed that the Cullens were creatures climbed out of a Gothic horror novel. Since Rosalie would’ve probably turned up her nose at the offer of my blood even if she had been a vampire, I’ll just have to bite my own neck. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

So here’s what’s going to happen.

When the nurse’s back is turned, I’m going to sneak outside, down the stairs, and through the gate leading to the student parking lot before the security guard notices me. Then I’m going to go home, write the most elegant and dignified suicide note in the history of suicide notes, and leave it on the table for Charlie to see when he comes back home (not too obviously, since I don’t want him to find me before I’m already good and dead- I’ll put it underneath some folder or paperweight, just the tip of it peeking out).

After that, I’m going to find the bottle of gin Billy left from celebrating their last fishing expedition, grab a bottle or two of painkillers, get my razor, and attempt to locate the MP3 player Charlie bought for my fourteenth birthday so that I won’t have to die listening to my own pitiful sobs or the sounds of woodland critters screwing in the background. Then I’ll head out into the woods behind the house, and slash my wrists ( _up the street, not across the road_ , I think to myself, more than a little hysterically). For good measure, I’ll take the Tylenol bottles and wash it down with Billy’s gin. And if that doesn’t kill me, then nothing will.

Garfield’s plastic eyeballs are boring into mine.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I mutter, turning my back to him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trying to balance levity w/ literally planning out a suicide attempt is more difficult than expected, but i'm gonna be real- most of my suicidal thoughts tended to kick in inside the nurse's office at school. i have no idea why, but that place sucks more life out of you than a math classroom, and it's definitely bc they think an ice pack is a good pain alleviator for period cramps(???)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning- this chapter includes graphic descriptions of attempted suicide.

The good news is that I do manage to find my old MP3 player, sitting dusty and neglected in a box in the corner of my closet. The bad news is that it has only three songs on it, two of which is It Was a Good Day, put twice for some inexplicable reason only fourteen-year-old Bella would know, and the last of which is The Scientist. Since I’m unwilling to die listening to Coldplay, I slip on my headphones and listen to Ice Cube detailing how he thanks God in the morning as I close the door of the house behind me.

My materials are all gathered in my backpack, which I unceremoniously emptied out onto my floor the second I got home from school. The house was empty, which was to be expected, but I still tensed every time I heard something creak downstairs. It’d be just my luck to be interrupted right as I was drafting my suicide note, which, instead of being the most elegant and dignified suicide note in the history of suicide notes, consists of two sentences:

_It was all too much. Sorry, Dad._

And even though they say brevity is the soul of wit, I’m not sure Charlie will take that into consideration when rereading this over and over again. Because he’s definitely going to read this over and over again- I mean, if he’s anything like me (and, after two months of living in this house, I know he’s more like me- or I’m more like him- than either of us hoped for), he’s going to spend the next several months uncrumpling this note over and over again, desperately looking between the lines for some addition he skimmed over.

Mom didn’t have the decency to leave a suicide note for Phil and I, but that didn’t stop me from listening to the last voicemail she gave on the landline over and over- some inconsequential message about picking up Cocoa Puffs at the grocery store-, until Phil finally unplugged it and hid it. It was unhealthy, he said, and it had to stop, though I’m still pretty sure he just started doing it himself, in the comfort of their room. 

I debated whether or not I should underline the “sorry,” just to get my point across, before ultimately deciding to just fold the damn thing and put it on the coffee table downstairs. I allowed myself to spare my bedroom one last glance before shutting the door behind me for the final time. There was a bittersweet feeling seizing my chest, but it was mingled with a relief I couldn’t quite describe as I carefully set the note beneath the stack of folders on the coffee table.

I suppose now, as I head off into the woods, that it’s so hard to describe because it’s a relief that only happens once or twice in your life, if you’re lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it). It’s the relief that comes with the knowledge that there isn’t going to be a tomorrow, that the breaths you’re taking have a set end, and you’re nearing that end with a finality that can’t be argued with.

The razor feels heavy in my pocket as I make my way through the trees, dappled, fading sunlight breaking past the canopy and falling on the soft golden-brown mud caking the bottom of my shoes. School’s been out for about an hour or two by now, I think, but I’m not about to check my Razr to find out, just in case I see a text from Charlie or Jacob and my resolve crumbles entirely.

I kind of wanted to wait until nightfall to do this- it felt thematically appropriate; I was born in the evening, I’d die in the evening, shrouded in moonlight with a lone owl watching over my rapidly cooling cadaver, yadda yadda yadda-, but I can’t reasonably take the chance that Charlie won’t decide to come back home early from the station to have some father-daughter bonding time. I mean, he never has in the past two months I’ve lived in Forks, but who knows? Things change rapidly. One minute, you’re internally accusing a pretty girl and her family of being vampires, and the next, you’re hiking out to the middle of the woods so you can carve holiday designs into your skin while Ice Cube details what a pimp he is in your ears.

But not waiting until dusk to go through with my plan is about more than just risking Charlie coming home early. It’s the fact that the temptation to go out the same way Mom went out gets stronger every second I’m inside the house, and I can’t put Charlie through what I went through. I just can’t. Imagining him walking up the stairs and smelling something odd behind the bathroom door- something he can’t quite place-, imagining him knocking once, twice, three times before turning the knob, imagining him standing in the threshold and his eyes widening as he looks at what’s in the bathtub- as he looks at the blood rising up to lap gently at my chin, and my eyes, staring at nothing- staring at the tiles of the bathroom wall, forever and always, is enough to send a wave of nausea crashing over me.

Because I may be selfish, but I’m not a monster. I’m not about to traumatize Charlie the same way Mom traumatized me. It’ll be better, in the long run, if he never finds my body- if he understands, in the most vague way imaginable, how I died, not by a delusional serial killer-slash-vampire-wannabe, but by my own hand. By my own means.

But he _is_ going to find my body, a nagging voice in my head says. Or, at least, the search party that’ll inevitably pop up after my disappearance will find my body out in the woods, and they’ll bring it back to him, and it’ll be traumatizing despite my best efforts- hence why I should’ve underlined the “sorry” in my suicide note after all.

I look behind my shoulder, silently debating whether I should go back or not, before I steel myself. I made a plan, and I’m sticking to it, for the first- and last- time in my life. Charlie might see my battered and bruised and muddied body etched behind his eyelids for the rest of his life, but it’ll be better knowing that it happened far away, that it wasn’t in the bathtub of the bathroom we share.

A shudder lances through me. I take a seat on a nearby stump of a tree and gather my backpack into my lap. Seeing the empty spot where my sketchbook should’ve been still makes my throat tighten up, even now, knowing I’d have no use for it past the few minutes I’d take to flip to the pages where I sketched Mom’s eyes. I clench my jaw and grab the half-finished bottle of gin instead. If there’s an afterlife, I’ll spend the rest of it haunting whatever asshole stole my sketchbook, but for now, I’m content washing down the disappointment with quite possibly the worst liquor I’ve ever drunk in my entire life.

I don’t understand how Charlie and Billy drink this stuff on a monthly, if not weekly, basis, but I take another burning gulp anyway before setting it down in my lap and reaching for the painkillers. I’d prefer to do this further away from the house- I’d barely walked for more than thirty minutes (in which It Was A Good Day played eight times, interposed by four unfortunate playbacks of The Scientist), but there’s supposed to be a heavy snowfall tonight. With my luck, I’ll be good and buried before tomorrow afternoon.

And besides, this isn’t such a bad place to die. The light breaks past the tree-line and falls almost directly on my tree stump, and though weak sunlight isn’t exactly warm sunlight, I tilt my head up to it anyway, soaking in it one last time. I always hated the cold.

I down an entire bottle of Tylenol, and take a quarter of the other before snapping the lids shut and pushing my backpack off my lap. I don’t want to die of liver poisoning; that’s just my alternate option in case I don’t cut deeply enough with my razor. Fucked up though it seems, I want to go out the same way Mom went out. Maybe not in the bathtub, not with a loved one walking in to find my hours-old corpse, but the blood flowing out of me. The thing under my skin I could never quite name- the thing that’s pushed me to this moment- finally expulsed from my body.

I take a breath, staring at the skin of my wrists. Littered with tiny scars though they are, they look so defenseless, so pure. The wrists of a child. How did that old quote go? “It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb…”

But this’ll be a good alternative, I think, as I bring the razor down.

Contrary to popular belief, wanting to die and having the means to die doesn’t actually mean you’ll be good at it. Even as the razor digs into my skin and blood begins to spurt from the wounds I leave behind, I know it’s not deep enough, though I’m pressing as hard as I can. Turns out that you can’t force your body to voluntarily go through with mutilating itself to the point of no return, even if your heart and your mind are more than willing. That won’t stop me from trying regardless, but it does mean that I have to look away as I press the killing thing against my skin.

Gritting my teeth, I slide down to the forest floor beneath my tree stump, leaning back against it as I drag the head of the razor down the pale, fleshy inside of my arm. I wish, belatedly, that I’d paid more attention in Honors Physiology last year. We had an entire section devoted to the major veins inside your arms and legs, and now that I need that knowledge the most, I’m completely blanking out.

Whatever. You dig deep enough, you’re bound to hit something sooner or later.

I turn my attention to the other arm, but by this point I’m feeling a little lightheaded. Either I’m losing more blood than I’d anticipated by this point, or the painkillers are kicking in. Still, I want to do a thorough job on this, even as tears begin to blur my vision and the pain suddenly hits me like a freight train, excruciating and multiplying tenfold with each rivet of blood that pours down my skin.

Past the roaring in my ears, past Ice Cube watching MTV Raps, I hear someone calling my name. When I look up, Emmett Cullen is standing in front of me, eyes hard and mouth pressed into a grim line as he looks down at me.

As I stare up at him, unwilling to believe my own eyes, unwilling to believe this is anything more than a pathetic fantasy my brain’s concocted for me in my last moments on Earth, he turns his head and asks, “Will she make it until we get to the house?”

“She will, but not for much longer after that,” comes the response, and Alice Cullen steps into view. Even through the tears stinging my eyes, I can see that both of their eyes are dark to the point of complete and utter blackness. Alice shudders a little as she kneels down beside me.

“You’re going to be okay, Bella,” she murmurs, pressing a cool hand against my forehead. “Just hold on.”

I stare at her. The words are as meaningless to me as if she’d been speaking ancient Aramaic, but I appreciate the effectiveness of my brain at constructing such a vivid, tactile daydream even as I’m slowly bleeding to death.

And then, before I can do or say anything, strong arms are suddenly latching themselves around the backs of my thighs and my back, and the earbuds of my MP3 player are ripped from my ears as I’m hefted into Emmett Cullen’s arms.

My eyes widen as I begin to realize the reality of my situation, but before I can scream, Alice clamps a hand over my mouth. I scream anyway, the sound muffled by her palm, and begin to thrash wildly. The ineffectiveness of it all strikes me as terribly funny, even as I flail and sob and beg for them to put me back where they found me. If anyone could manage to fuck up her own suicide attempt, of course it would be me.

Something weird happens after that.

Well, even weirder than the past minute has been, anyway. Emmett begins to move, and the trees start to blur around us. My head smacks against his chest and leaves me blacked out for a few seconds, and when I revive, somehow we’re standing in front of what I can only assume is the Cullen house, huge and stately and looking probably much the same as it has for the past hundred years.

I would appreciate it more if it weren’t for the fact that I’m suddenly, horribly aware of why I’m being brought here. I scream my head off, the sound not muffled by Alice’s hand, and though I instinctively know the nearest neighbor is at least five miles away, I’m still screaming for help as we step inside the house.

Emmett makes a beeline for the living room- _ostentatious as hell,_ some part of my brain notes snidely even as another wave of nausea comes washing over me- and sets me down on the elegant white couch that I promptly stain with my blood. Alice is hot on his heels, hands fluttering uselessly as she watches me, but I ignore her as I scan the room past my blurry vision. There’s a glass table beside the couch, oak bookshelves lining the room, a massive flatscreen TV hoisted against the wall…

“Go get Carlisle,” Emmett says in a low voice, but the man is already walking briskly towards the couch. Even as I lay bleeding out on their couch, I can’t help but note he’s almost painfully beautiful, all blonde hair and pale skin and TV doctor-worried as he kneels beside the couch and lifts one of my wrists into his own chilly hands. An equally gorgeous woman comes to stand beside him, her heart-shaped face perturbed as she begins handing him bandages and gauze, and what looks, to my dawning horror, to be two medical tourniquets.

With strength I didn’t know I still possess, I yank myself off the couch and smash my fists against the glass coffee table. The adrenaline coursing through my rapidly emptying veins must be potent, because it shatters into a thousand tiny pieces on the first try, and I grab the first piece I can find before scurrying to a corner of the room like a wild animal.

Four sets of eyes are watching me with varying degrees of worry as I set the glass against my throat.

“Don’t come any closer,” I hiss, chest heaving with the exertion of the move I just pulled, “or I swear to God I’ll slit my throat. Got it?”

“Bella, put the glass down,” Carlisle instructs, his voice remarkably steady as he watches me with an infuriatingly knowing look in his eyes. “You don’t want to do this.”

I laugh hollowly.

“Don’t I, _Doctor_ Cullen?” I gasp out, with as much vitriol as I can muster. Turning my attention to Alice and Emmett, I say, “You know, I was going to offer myself as a free meal to you guys until you pulled that stunt at lunch. Bet you vomited that food up real quick after I left, huh?”

I smile grimly at the way they exchange glances.

“Oh, yeah,” I murmur. The adrenaline is leaving fast, and even the movement of pressing the glass against my neck is becoming tiresome. “I know exactly what you guys are, and I know you knew it. You probably stole my sketchbook, too, and killed all those girls in the woods-“

“Bella, you’re not making any sense,” says the woman, who I can only assume is Carlisle’s wife, if the way she grabs his arm for support is any indication. “Please, just come back to the couch and we’ll talk-“

“ _No_ ,” I pant, wheezing slightly as I tighten my hold on the glass. “No more talking. You can drink my blood cold off the floor if you want, but-“

And then the world goes sideways as I’m suddenly tackled onto the floor. The glass goes flying from my hand, and I look up blearily to see Rosalie Hale straddling me in the worst possible way, her eyes black as pitch as she stares down at me.

“I thought Edward was guarding her and Jasper!” somebody gasps, but she doesn’t seem to hear them. Her eyes bore so deep into mine that, for a hysterical second, I imagine she can see all the way through to the back of my skull.

“Rosalie, _don’t_ ,” Emmett says from behind us, his voice taut as a bowstring. A tense silence descends on the room as Rosalie and I look at each other. For a moment, my heart swells with hope- it’s going to happen, she’s going to sink her teeth into my neck or my wrists and I’ll know nothing at all-, before she lets out an agonized roar and pushes her elegantly manicured finger down my throat.

I gag, and she’s immediately lifting me upright and supporting my head as I begin to vomit, violently, all over the floor. Things happen in quick succession after that. Carlisle begins wrapping my wrists with the bandages as I stain his nice wooden floors with my Tylenol-tinged puke, Rosalie still maintaining a tight grip on the back of my neck and torso so that I don’t fall into a puddle of my own sick.

My own powerless is horrifically apparent throughout it all, and I squeeze my eyes tightly so I don’t have to witness the proceedings of my own thwarted suicide attempt occurring around me. I’m maneuvered back onto the couch, and somebody is dragging a damp cloth across my sweaty forehead as Carlisle applies the tourniquets over my wrists.

I lay there, lifeless as a doll, as Mrs. Cullen maneuvers an IV Pole into the room, holding a bag of something whose contents I can’t quite make out in her free hand. I do not protest as Carlisle inserts the needle just beneath my elbow and as Mrs. Cullen feeds the solution into the IV bag, or as Edward comes into the room with a glass of water in his hand and lifts my head so I can sip as though I’m an infant.

Throughout it all, I’m vaguely aware of Emmett fluttering around the room, trying to find something to do, someway to help, and as infuriated and lonely and helpless as I feel, there’s a tiny pinprick of warmth that blossoms inside me every time he glances my way. Like before, I can’t tell if I begrudge him for it or not. It’s at least partially his fault that I’m here, after all, and not sinking into a snowbank in the middle of the woods.

But it’s his constant, tangible worry that ends up making me pliant, at least up until Carlisle picks up the landline. I stir weakly at that, forcing my eyes to stay open as I look up at him.

“No Charlie,” I manage to rasp out, “and no ambulance. You owe me that much.”

We stare at each other for a beat, and then he puts the phone down. I barely have the strength to mutter a weak “thank-you,” resenting the fact that I’m thanking him at all, before whatever Mrs. Cullen's given me kicks in, and I know nothing at all.

* * *

I dream about Mom for the first time in months.

We’re curled up on the couch in the living room, my head resting on her lap as she rubs idle circles into my scalp. Some old black-and-white horror film is playing, and when I look up, she’s mouthing the words as though she knows them by heart. She probably does; she told me once that when she was a kid, she’d stay inside every Halloween while all her friends went trick-or-treating to watch slasher flicks in her room.

When she sees me looking up at her, she grins at me. To my dull surprise, her incisors are sharp and pointed, but her eyes are crinkled with warmth as she looks down at me, so I don’t stir. Putting up a struggle would be futile, anyway; the way her fingers are stroking through my hair makes me feel literally boneless.

“Bela Lugosi not hot enough to hold your attention, Bells?” She asks with a slight lisp as she gestures towards the screen. Sure enough, there’s Count Dracula himself, leaning over Mina’s bed. I wince as he sinks his teeth into her, but Mom’s only response is to laugh lightly.

“So cheesy,” she murmurs, before removing the evidently fake plastic teeth in her mouth and setting it carelessly on the coffee table. “Remind me why we’re watching this again?”

“Because you have bad taste?” I offer, and the laugh that erupts from her throat is louder and more raucous than my words warranted. She wipes a tear of mirth from her eye before leaning down and kissing me, hard, on the forehead.

“Oh, Bella,” she sighs, leaning back against the couch cushions while I attempt, unsuccessfully to rub off the lipstick stain she’s left on my forehead. “I guess we shouldn’t make fun. I mean, Bela Lugosi was my age when he made this film. Can you believe it?”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” I say, clumsily reaching upwards to pat her cheek. “You look way younger than him.”

This inexplicably sets her off laughing again, and I wait patiently until the last of her giggles have died off.

“I should hope so,” she says. “If I’m going to be forty-nine forever, it better be a young-looking forty-nine.”

My heart sinks as I look at her. I know I’m forgetting something- something important, something vital, but I can’t remember what it is for the life of me, even as the warning sirens start flashing in my head.

“What do you-“

“Shh, Bells, we’re getting to the best part,” she hushes, and we watch in silence as Van Helsing confronts Dracula about his lack of a reflection in the mirror. This time, it’s my turn to laugh.

“They got that wrong,” I say, when Mom looks at me quizzically. “Vampires totally have reflections.”

“And how would you know such a thing?” she asks teasingly. The warning sirens grow louder in my head, and I frown.

“I… I don’t know,” I mumble. Something occurs to me as I look up at her. She’s taken the cheap, Party City teeth off, but there are still two small holes painted onto the side of her neck. I lick my thumb and raise my hand to rub it off, but when I move my hand back against my chest, the indentations are still there, black as pitch against the pale skin of her throat.

Slowly, my gaze moves over to her face. Sharp fangs have are protruding from her lips, but when I look back at the coffee table, the fake teeth are still sitting there. Realization hits me like a brick to the face, but when I make an attempt to move, her hands are suddenly clamped down on either side of my skull, forcing me to look at her as I begin to tremble.

“Don’t worry, Bells,” She whispers, bringing her face close to mine. “You won’t feel a thing.”

I wake up just before her teeth pierce my neck.

I’m sweaty and shivery as I come to full awareness, gasping for breath as I sit up on the couch. It’s still dark outside, but I can tell instinctively that it’s the blue-black of the early morning, an hour or two before people start to stir back into the world of the living.

I almost miss Jasper sitting in the chair adjacent to the couch until he suddenly shifts in his seat. The whites of his eyes shine bright as headlights in the darkness of the living room, blown open as they bore into my face.

When he speaks, he sounds just as unmoored as I feel.

“I’m sorry,” he rasps. “I- I was trying to give you a good dream, but it was as though you took the reins from me. It went haywire.”

I rub the sleep from my eyes as I look at him.

“What do you mean, you were trying to ‘give me a good dream?’” I say, raising my hands to air quote him before I’m stopped short. My left arm still has a tube protruding out of it, and I can’t help the impulse to tug at it. No give.

“I can control emotions, to a certain extent,” Jasper says haltingly, watching my face, and I carefully do not give a response. “I was upstairs when you were- brought in, but I could feel the remnant of what you felt from two floors up. And I couldn’t do anything to help you while you were bleeding, but I thought perhaps this might make up for it, in its own way. Only, it’s especially hard to sway unconscious emotions, and I certainly didn’t expect it to have that effect on you. I’m sorry, Bella.”

“It’s fine,” I mutter, looking away. “Nothing my own brain couldn’t come up with. But I’m confused- what did you mean, you couldn’t help me while I was bleeding?”

Carlisle decides to enter the room at that moment, flickering the lights on as he steps through the threshold, and I groan and hiss like a- _not vampire, don’t you dare say vampire_ \- as the overhead lights momentarily blind me. His wife is hot on his heels, carrying a tray of various breakfast items that she sets down on the couch beside me (the mess I left of the coffee table, I note guiltily, has been cleaned up while I was sleeping, and I hope she wasn’t the one to do it. Rosalie, on the other hand…)

“Bella, honey, I didn’t get to introduce myself yesterday,” says Mrs. Cullen, touching my shoulder with an impossibly gentle hand as she nudges the breakfast tray closer to me. “I’m sorry we didn’t meet under better circumstances. My name is Esme. I wasn’t sure what you normally eat for breakfast, but I made French toast, a mushroom omelet, turkey bacon…”

She trails off when she sees the expression on my face. I shake my head once, stomach turning as I take in the smell of grease and meat, and she squeezes my shoulder in response, before taking the tray back into her arms. I blink, and she’s still sitting right beside me, only now the tray is nowhere to be found.

I gawk at her.

“How did you-“

“How are you feeling, Bella?” Carlisle asks in a quiet but authoritative voice, taking my arm into his hands in one smooth, fluid motion as he takes a seat on my left side. When I look down, I realize, with a sharp jolt, that my wounds have been stitched up. My head swivels upwards so fast I nearly break my skull against Carlisle’s nose.

“You didn’t hit any major arteries, mercifully,” He says, either ignoring or oblivious of the accusatory expression that’s no doubt etched onto my face. “Otherwise, I would’ve carted you off to the hospital the moment you stepped through the door. But, though I tried to be as neat and precise as possible, there will be scars. Noticeable ones.”

I hear him sigh almost imperceptibly as I look away.

“Bella, you have to tell Charlie what happened. He’s your father, and he’s no doubt worried about-“

“You’re vampires!” I snap, unable to keep it inside me anymore. Carlisle falls silent at that, and I feel a hysterical laugh bubbling in my throat as he glances down at his lap, like a schoolboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “You’re the living dead, and I _know_ _it_ , and your biggest concern right now is telling my dad about my- about what happened in the woods last night? Are you for real?”

“We shouldn’t have this conversation without the others,” murmurs Esme. Turning her head to face Jasper, she asks, “Please go and fetch your sisters and broth-“

But she shouldn’t have bothered, because, just like yesterday, they breeze into the living room with seemingly no prompting whatsoever, as though they’d been waiting outside the door all along. Rosalie is stone-faced as she walks past me, and my gaze can’t help but fall onto her hands, curled into fists at her sides. Those same fingers had lodged themselves down my throat yesterday, had held me, in the same minute, as Carlisle staunched the bleeding…

Alice’s arms are suddenly latching around my neck with surprising strength, and I choke a little as she leans against me, her spiky black hair tickling the underside of my nose. She holds on for a long while, enough so that I feel my face begin to burn tellingly, before leaning back, her face crumpled as though she’s about to burst into tears at any minute. Which raises the interesting question- can vampires cry?

I don’t think now’s the time to ask, but I put the question on the backburner as she takes either side of my face into the palms of her hands and presses her forehead against mine.

“We almost didn’t get to you in time,” she whispers, and my face begins to burn for another reason entirely. “I’m sorry, Bella. If I’d been more perceptive- if I’d seen what you were intending before…”

“Alice,” Esme chides quietly, and she takes a deep breath before nodding and detaching herself from me, seating herself on Jasper’s lap and pressing her cheek against his, watching me all the while. The places where she’d touched my face feel cold as ice for a long time afterwards.

“Hey, Bella,” Emmett mumbles, following Rosalie onto the little loveseat beside Jasper and Alice’s armchair, and my stomach churns with no small amount of either guilt or dread (I still can’t make up my mind). He doesn’t look awful, per say- _he never looks awful,_ says a traitorous voice in the back of my head-, but the bags under his eyes seem to be even more pronounced than usual, and I can’t tell if it’s because his skin looks sallower or he hasn’t slept a wink since last night. Or ever, for that matter.

Edward offers me a careful head nod in greeting, and I smile wryly to myself in response- a smile which must strike him as inappropriate, if the furrow that suddenly appears between his brows means anything. I’m used to being treated like a live wire, but it’s a little absurd coming from somebody who can no doubt rip my throat out with his teeth in the blink of an eye. The moment he squeezes himself into the loveseat beside Emmett, the entire room falls into a silence so potent, a cricket chirp would echo off the walls.

“So,” I say finally, bracing my elbows on my knees as I lean forward. “Let’s talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i'm gonna b real i had this scene planned out before basically chapters 5-8 but i think it integrated as well as to be expected, u know? (also please don't ask me what's in the iv bag or how bella doesn't contract liver poisoning after downing 2 tylenol bottles bc i'd like to know the same thing. i'm gonna assume she vomited it all out but like if u or a loved one consume the entire contents of a pill bottle and then some, call poison control and an ambulance ASAP bc vomiting won't get all the toxins out of ur system and liver poisoning is NOT fun).


	10. Chapter 10

“First,” says Carlisle, “we need to talk about why you attempted to kill yourself.”

I wheeze out a laugh until I realize that he’s being deadly serious. I stare at him incredulously, but his face remains impassive as ever as he looks back at me, hands clasped loosely in his lap as he waits patiently for my response.

“I’m sorry,” I say after a minute, “but I’m not going to discuss my suicide attempt in front of a live studio audience.”

I don’t like being the center of attention at the best of times. Now that one, not two, but _seven_ pairs of eyes are watching me, I feel not unlike how I imagine a gazelle must feel after she finds herself trapped in a lion’s den- only, the lions are refusing to eat her, and instead demanding she regale them with sordid tales of her mommy issues and chronic depression. 

My trepidation eases slightly, and when I glance upwards at the rest of the room, I see Jasper looking at me. I shake my head slightly, and he frowns but concedes, looking away. The- relief?- he gave me fades as soon as his gaze leaves mine, but I feel comforted by the absence, regardless. I don't want to second-guess my emotions any more than I am right now. 

“You refuse to let me take you to the hospital, probably because you’re aware they’ll place you in a cot in the psych ward if I do so,” Carlisle says calmly, turning my attention back towards him. “You’re adamant that I not contact Charlie, and if I even attempt to refer you to a psychologist-“

“Therapy won’t work on me,” I mutter, looking away.

“-you most likely won’t attend meetings. You need to talk to somebody, Bella, and if I’m the only person you’re even considering speaking with, then so be it.”

My gaze snaps back to his, narrowing.

“You’re not even a head doctor,” I say, scowling at him. To my surprise, the corners of his mouth quirk up into a small smile.

“I have four PhD’s in psychology,” He murmurs demurely. At my raised eyebrows, he explains, “Psychology has altered drastically since the days of Freud. I find that it’s better to be prepared as new issues arise.”

“Why can’t we talk about _this_ first?” I burst out, getting to my feet before immediately sinking back down onto the couch as a wave of nausea crashes over me. Esme’s hands are immediately on my shoulders, steadying me. The chill of them feels pleasant on my overheated skin, but I shake her off anyway. I can’t stand the thought of anybody touching me right now. “Like, hello? You guys are v- you know, what Bram Stoker basically owes his career to.”

“You can say the word, you know,” Emmett says from the loveseat he, Rosalie, and Edward are sitting on. His hands are templed together, obscuring the lower half of his face, but his eyes are bright and expressive as they look at me. “It’s not a slur or anything.”

“It’s not a slur or- I know it’s not a slur!” I exclaim, fighting down a hysterical laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all as I sink back against the cushions of the couch. “Fine. You guys are _vampires,_ with a capital V, and not to make cracks at anyone’s age, but probably older than my Trig teacher _and_ Principal McGowan combined-“

Rosalie wrinkles her nose, the only reaction she’s given in the past five minutes I’ve been awake.

“Mrs. Monroe is only seventy-four years old-“

“and you just expect me to ignore that so I can talk about the fact that the revelation that vampires exist in the world isn’t enough to make me stop wishing I wasn’t out there in the snow right now? Or that I’m imagining all of this, and you’re just some convoluted metaphor about my inability to cope with the permeance of death, personified in the form of a nuclear family unit so the universe can better fucking elucidate the fact that my mom _killed herself because she didn’t love me enough to stick around?”_

I’m panting by the time I finish my sentence, chest heaving as though I’ve just ran one of Coach Pornstache’s thirty-minute miles. Nobody says anything, and this, more than anything, enrages me, even more than the fact that Alice and Emmett found me before I could bleed out like I was supposed to.

“You want to know why I did it?” I snap, forcing myself to look straight at Carlisle even though I kind of want to bury my face in my hands and scream until there’s no breath left in my lungs. “Three months ago, I went into the bathroom to find my mom dead in the bathtub. She looked like she’d been there for half a day, even though Phil swore that he heard her get up from bed _maybe_ an hour before I found her. But she didn’t look like she’d been dead for an hour. She looked… waterlogged.”

A shudder ripples through me, and then another, and another, but I force myself to continue speaking, clutching my elbows and hugging my arms close to my chest as my arms explode into a million goosebumps, as my teeth begin to chatter, even though my internal temperature feels like it’s pushing ninety. Esme doesn’t try to touch me again, thank God, but I feel her make an abrupt movement towards me, hands hovering above her thighs, as though the only thing keeping her from doing so is the fact that I will very likely explode into a hundred pieces if she so much as brushes against me.

“We had a funeral not long after. I moved back in with my dad the next week. And all the while, I kept thinking one thought: that I was the worst daughter in the world. Because my mom gave no indication that she was going to kill herself. She seemed happy- or, if not happy, she seemed the same as ever. So either I missed signs that were bright, screaming red, or my mom didn’t love me enough to not stick her dead body somewhere so out in the open- and either way, it pointed to the same thing.”

I can’t look at Carlisle anymore; his eyes are brimming with unspoken kindness, with wordless sympathy. I shut my eyes tight and pretend that the room is empty, that the only person I’m speaking to is myself.

“I still see her sometimes,” I admit, in a whisper so quiet the only way anyone could possibly hear me is if they can also hear my heart lurching in my chest. “I see her body, laying in her own bloody bathwater-“

It’s the moment right before I began to scream that’s most vivid in my head. Everything seemed suspended- my hand still on the bathroom knob, the smell of something metallic suddenly wafting in the air, the moment my eyes left the floor and found her lying there, head lolled over the side of the tub, eyes wide open in what looked like mute terror, though I knew better, even then. Her eyes hadn’t seen anything for a long time.

“-and she’s looking at me,” I finish, my breath hitching in my throat. “She’s looking at me, but she doesn’t see anything. And that’s why I did what I did. If you ask me, that’s a pretty damn good reason.”

Again, nobody speaks for a good, long while, and I feel the desperation build up like a physical presence in my chest. I keep my eyes screwed shut; I’d rather chew my own tongue right now rather than see the reaction my words have caused, these words that I’ve kept locked inside myself since the moment I saw Mom laying in the bathtub. The urge to claw at my own wrists is getting stronger by the second, but I know it’d be useless- Esme would have my hands pinned down before I could even reach over, and then Carlisle really would call the psych ward. No doubt my cries of “Vampires!” would only serve to lengthen my sentence.

“I’m so sorry,” says a feminine voice, and I’m expecting it to be Esme, or maybe Alice, but when I finally open my eyes, it’s Rosalie who’s looking straight at me.

She looks devastated, to say the least, her face crumpled like a used napkin. I’ve come to the conclusion that vampires cannot, in fact, cry, but that doesn’t stop her eyes from crinkling up in preparation of tears that won’t ever come. She’s shaking like a leaf, harder than I am, and though Emmett’s rubbing soothing circles into the skin of her back, she doesn’t seem to notice him- her entire focus is fixated on me, eyes roaming up and down my face as though she’s never quite seen me before.

“I’m so sorry, Bella,” she continues, her voice hoarse as she speaks. “I didn’t mean- I didn’t know- I would’ve stayed far away from you if I’d known, I’m- I’m so-“

She stops herself, shaking her head, and presses her face against the crook of Emmett’s shoulder, who looks almost as surprised as I feel.

“What’s she talking about?” I ask quietly, still reeling from the open display of my bloody heart less than a minute ago. Carlisle heaves a sigh, his eyes flickering between my face and Rosalie’s, before he finally speaks.

“All humans,” He begins, crossing his legs in such a perfect, unconscious imitation of a Freudian professor that I have to suppress a wildly inappropriate smile, “to a certain extent, have very distinct smells that make it rather difficult for people of our nature to restrain ourselves. Over time, our tolerance for the smell of humans grows stronger- in some cases, strong enough to restrain ourselves even when a human is bleeding out in front of us.”

He gives me a pointed look, which I can’t help but roll my eyes at. What does he want me to say- “thanks for not feasting on my open wounds, even though that was kind of the point in the first place?”

“But there are some humans,” He continues, in the same erudite fashion, “whose individual smells call to us, enough so that a thousand years of restraint can be wiped away in the blink of an eye. And Rosalie had only been practicing for the past seventy-two years before you came along.”

Throughout his explanation, Rosalie’s kept her face pressed against Emmett’s throat, either unable or unwilling to look at me. Now, though, her eyes slowly rise from the pale skin of Emmett’s neck to meet mine. I begin to shiver for another reason entirely.

“We call people like you singers,” Alice murmurs from her perch on Jasper’s lap, “because your blood sings to us. Or, well- to Rosalie. And Jasper, too, though that’s more because he finds it difficult to restrain himself at all, rather than-“

Jasper raises his eyebrows at her, and she falls silent, though not before giving his cheek an contrite peck.

“When you came,” Rosalie says, in that same rough, low tone, “I thought I was going to go insane. I’d planned the death of everybody in the cafeteria twice over before Edward kicked my chair.”

“And thank God I did,” Edward murmurs, “because Alice told me she saw a hundred human corpses littered around the cafeteria before I intervened.”

Rosalie winces, as though he’s physically punched her in the gut. Emmett gives him a dirty look as he wraps his arm around her shoulders.

“How did you know what she was thinking?” I ask slowly, looking over at Edward. “What do you mean, Alice ‘saw’ a hundred human corpses?”

“Long story short,” Emmett says in a low voice, “Edward can read minds, Alice can see the future, Jasper can feel- and change- emotions. And the rest of us can, uh, drink blood. That’s pretty much it.”

I blink. That didn’t really answer my question- actually, about a dozen new ones popped up with each new syllable, but asking them can be delegated to later on. For now, though…

“So you don’t actually hate me?” I ask, turning to Rosalie, and she chokes out an incredulous laugh.

“You were just told that I find your blood so irresistible, I’d planned the death of your classmates so I could suck the blood from your veins until there was nothing left,” she says, “and you’re worried about me hating you?”

I flush, and attempt to ignore the way her gaze lowers from my eyes to my cheeks as I do so.

“Actually,” I say, eager to change the subject, “I’m also worried about the fact that you began killing girls who look like me because you couldn’t control yourself. Or did everyone just suddenly forget about that?”

The bewildered look on Rosalie’s face as she shakes her head doesn’t inspire much confidence.

“The others told me that you were talking about that at lunch yesterday,” she says, and if that isn’t a wild realization- the notion that the events of today haven’t been unfurling for the past couple of years, and that it was only yesterday I’d been seated at the Cullens’ cafeteria table while they talked circles around me-, then I don’t know what is.

“But I have absolutely no clue what you’re referencing,” Rosalie continues, sounding almost apologetic as she looks at me. “True, I had to go hunting for five days in a row after seeing you for the first time- but I never killed any humans. Emmett was with me; he can contest.”

“She ripped through three grizzly bears on the first day alone,” Emmett says, his tone highly appreciative, as he squeezes her against him, “but no, she never killed any humans. Believe me, Bella- if she had, we’d probably have moved to Alaska by now.”

“Then whose been killing those girls?” I ask frustratedly. “It can’t be a coincidence that they all look like me, that all of them happened in the same time span as when I first came to Forks-“

“We’ll worry about that, Bella,” Carlisle interrupts. “But you need to worry about yourself for now. You are going through an impossibly difficult time in your life-“

I scoff, loudly and derisively, but he presses on.

“-and we need to establish some sort of system for you, something that’ll help you come to terms with what your mother did and allow you to move past it.”

In response, I wave my arm at him, the inside still a bright, angry red as the stitches begin to raise.

“I don’t know, Doc,” I say, flashing a wide, humorless smile at him. “I think this is a pretty good coping mechanism.”

He doesn’t deign to justify that with a response as he leans forward and, without warning, removes the tube leading to the IV Pole out of my arm. I hiss in response, eyeing my arm for the telltale blood to well up at the gesture, but none does.

“I would like,” he says, leaning back in his seat, “for you to come back here every day after school and talk to me. Or Esme, at least.”

“Esme?” I glance at her, eyebrows still stitched together with concern, and then back at Carlisle. “Why Esme?”

She makes a little sound in the back of her throat.

“I know what you’re going through Bella,” she says, her voice soft and soothing. “I went through it myself- or something like it, anyway. My son died as a baby, and I attempted to… to end my life, as you had. But then Carlisle found me, and everything changed. If I can, I would like to at least try and give you a sliver of the comfort I found in him.”

She glances up at him, and their shared gaze is adoring to the point of discomfort. I sigh. I don’t want to talk to either of them, but I have a feeling they’ll be tight-lipped about anything else- namely, their secret vampire abilities and backstories, yadda yadda yadda- until I agree.

“Fine,” I groan, wishing I hadn't even as the words come out of my mouth. Speaking about what I'm feeling was hard enough the first time- imagining doing it on a weekly basis nearly makes me tear the hair from my roots. At least that might be less painful. “Yes. Impromptu therapy session with the man who was a hundred years old when Jung was in diapers. _Ya-ay_.”

“Two hundred years old, give or take,” Carlisle corrects gently, before smiling at me. It’s a sincere smile, his eyes crinkling with warmth and approval, and I surprise myself by preening under it. “Okay, Bella. Ask away.”

* * *

As we drive back home, my mind whirls with abandon as I watch the snowstorm unfurl outside. Emmett drives like a maniac, the snow barely an impediment to him, and though I feel just as self-destructive as I had been twelve hours ago, I still clutch the roof handle so tightly, my knuckles turn white. Dying because we skidded on the road after Emmett did 80 in a 25 isn’t really my ideal way to go out.

 _No,_ I think, as I glance over at him. _No, he subverted that._

“I’m not Edward,” he murmurs, not taking his eyes off the road, “but I can hear your thoughts from here, anyway.”

“You saved me,” I whisper, and the words come out as accusatory and bitter as I still feel, even after everything that’s happened. “You and Alice both. I don’t think I can forgive you for that, Emmett.”

“Well, get used to it,” he retorts, easing slightly on the gas pedal as he looks at me. “I’ve been doing it since before you were aware of it.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, even though I find that it’s difficult to return his gaze. He looks at me- not as a predator, as the killing thing I now know, after Carlisle’s two-hour long explanation, that they all are-, but as you might look at a wounded animal, and I know instinctively that the latter is worse. He never looked at me with pity before; I can’t stand it now. I turn bodily away from him, tucking my feet under me as I lean my forehead against the glass.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I mutter, keeping my eyes trained on the blur of white that passes by my window.

“That I wasn’t sure if Rosalie was going to kill you in your sleep, and so I went by your house every night for approximately two months to make sure she didn’t,” comes his chipper response, and my head swivels so quickly, my neck lets out an audible cracking sound.

“Are you serious?” I demand, unable to believe- even after all I’ve just heard, and still trying to process- that Emmett Cullen took it upon himself to watch me sleep every night. Emmett lets out a dry little laugh.

“Don’t worry- I wasn’t watching you change or anything,” he says, a smile growing across his face when he watches my own flush in something that’s either embarrassment or-

Nope. Not going to finish that sentence.

"Don't worry," Emmett adds, after a slight pause. "I won't do it again. Rosalie seems to have controlled herself throughout you bleeding on the couch, and I-"

"I want you to," I whisper, shutting my eyes tight so I won't be compelled to look at him. "I don't trust myself not to- I want you to, Emmett."

Though my eyes are still shut, I can feel his gaze like something physical.

“Okay," He says roughly, and his voice is conglomeration of emotions I'm not even going to try and unpack right now. "You know, not everyone wants you dead as much as you do. Did."

"Do," I correct automatically, eyes fluttering open, and both of us look at each other with all-too self-aware smiles. His smile fades, though, as he looks back to the road, his grip on the steering wheel tightening perceptibly as he speaks. "I’m- look, Bella. I’m sorry for lying to you, I am. I’m sorry for making you feel like you were crazy yesterday in the cafeteria. But I will never be sorry about saving you. Ever."

Neither of us says anything else for the duration of the car ride home.

I’m still mulling over his words as I let myself out of his car with a muttered “goodbye,” as I walk up the driveway to the front door. I automatically move to hang my jacket on the stand before I belatedly remember that underneath is a white long-sleeve, stained coppery red with my dried blood-, and keep it on as I walk into the kitchen, suddenly ravenous. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday’s breakfast.

I’m pulling out a box of cereal when something stirs behind me. I nearly jump out of my skin as I turn around, grasping the counter behind me for support. Charlie’s sitting at the breakfast table, so quiet and still I hadn’t even noticed him as I walked in. When he looks up at me, his eyes are bright with tears.

“Bella,” He croaks. His voice is _ruined,_ and it’s only when I look down at the note crumpled in his hand that I realize, with horrible, dawning comprehension, why. “What’s this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. looking back at this chapter makes me realize just how self-indulgent this is and yet that isn't gonna stop me at all lmaooo


	11. Chapter 11

My first, immediate thought is, _Fuck you, Alice. Fuck you so hard._

Because she _had_ to have seen this. She saw this coming, and she didn’t warn me until it was too late- for what? Her version of punishment, maybe, at bleeding all over the Cullens’ couch, and puking all over their hardwood floors, and forcibly turning her entire family into unwilling audience members of my inevitable mental breakdown?

Swallowing down my ire, I turn to Charlie, who’s been staring at me with impossibly wide eyes this whole time.

“Dad,” I say carefully, sliding into the empty seat next to him, “it’s not what it looks like.”

He huffs out an incredulous laugh, and I wince. Okay, I know- when has that line ever worked out in the history of emotional turmoil-spurred discussions, right? But in my defense, I just emerged from the most grueling morning of my life, to come back home only to be confronted by Charlie, who is possibly the last person in the entire world I would’ve ever chosen to find my hastily crafted and ominously vague suicide note.

“Really, Bella?” He asks, the tears now beginning to spill over. I watch their trek down his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose as my stomach does an awful turn. I need to come up with a good explanation for this, and it’s sick irony that my brain- which is always chattering, always awake- has now gone completely and utterly silent, in the moment that I need it the most. “Really? What could this have possibly meant other than- than-“

I can’t let him finish that sentence. So instead, I screw my eyes shut and say, “I was going to run away.”

Dead silence for a beat. Then two. When I warily open my eyes, Charlie’s still crying quietly, but the look in his eyes has changed from accusatory into bewildered.

“What do you mean?” He asks finally, scanning my face like he might find all the answers to his questions etched in my features. I carefully school my expression into something neutral, even as my heart begins to race a mile a minute inside my chest. I have no idea if he’ll believe me, but at the very least, he might not send me to the psych ward once all is said and done.

That isn’t to say he won’t hate me after all is said and done, though. After I’ve said what I’m about to say. I take a deep breath and raise my eyebrows at him, a little incredulously.

“Dad,” I say, in my most obvious tone of voice. “You have to know that I’m not happy here.”

He stares at me uncomprehendingly for a few seconds, before my words suddenly register and he cringes backwards, as though I’ve slapped him across the face. Guilt churns deep inside me as I watch him wearily rub a hand over his face.

“And so you- what? You were planning on hitchhiking all the way back to Arizona? You didn’t even bring your car with you, Bella. Your clothes were still hanging in the closet where you’d left them,” He says, his voice still tinged with suspicion. Not good. I have to throw him off my trail, and I can only do that in one way.

“I wasn’t thinking,” I retort, but when I see his expression settle back into one of suspicion, I hastily add, “All I _was_ thinking was that I didn’t want anything you gave me. And besides, I don’t have enough gas money to last me all the way to Arizona. Hitchhiking was my best option to get far the hell away from here.”

“You understand what this looks like, Bella?” Charlie demands desperately, waving the note back and forth, and this time it’s my turn to cringe backwards into my seat. “This looks almost word-for-word what your mother wrote when she first tried to kill herself.”

My lips had been parted to speak the moment he stopped, but I find that my voice has fled as I try to formulate a response to that. When I finally find it, it’s gone small and quiet as though speaking through a child’s throat.

“Mom tried to kill herself before?” I ask, so softly I’m not even sure he heard me, and that’s when Charlie drops the note onto the kitchen table and puts his face into his hands, his shoulders heaving with the force of his sobs. I stare at him, unblinking, as my own eyes fill with tears.

I want to go around the table and put my arms around him, or at the very least lean over and hold his hand, but instead I just stupidly sit there, looking at him and digging my nails so hard into my thighs, I can feel indentations forming on my skin through the thick denim of my jeans.

After a horrible minute that feels like it’s been going on an eternity, Charlie lowers his hands from his face and wipes his forearm across his eyes, trying to blot out the tears that he’s so obviously been shedding. When he looks at me, I’m sure my eyes are just as red-rimmed as his own.

“I’m sorry,” we both say, at the exact same time. A beat passes, and then Charlie’s voice fills the air, strangled and halting as he attempts to get his words out of a mouth that’s so twisted, I have to stamp down the urge to parrot the words of every mother in America since the dawn of time and tell him to stop making that face or it’s going to stay that way forever.

“I know I haven’t been at home often- or ever, pretty much,” He begins, his gaze steadfastly remaining on the kitchen table, “and I’m- I’m impossibly sorry for that now, but Bella, I thought you didn’t _want_ me at home. I thought you wanted your space. And- I’ll be truthful.” But he falls silent for such a long while afterwards that I almost lean across the kitchen table to nudge him, when he finally blurts out, “I was a coward. I was a coward, and I didn’t want to face my only daughter after her mother killed herself. I didn’t know what to say to you, Bella. I didn’t know how to help you, and that made me feel so helpless that I couldn’t bear being in this house longer than I had to.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, silently grateful that Emmett’s going to check up on me tonight, because I know for a fact that, if left to my own devices, I’ll cut my skin into ribbons. Charlie lets out a choked, wet laugh.

“I admit that I’m failing as a father, and _you’re_ the one apologizing?” He asks incredulously, shaking his head, before taking a deep breath and looking up at me, his eyelashes still wet with tears. “Yes, Bella. Your mother tried to kill herself before. You know she’d dealt with post-partum depression after you were born, but I- I don’t know, I just didn’t think it’d get as bad as it got. Not until I found her tying a sheet to the wood beam above our bed, anyway.”

“She tried to hang herself in your bedroom?” I ask, my voice smaller than I’d ever heard it sound before. Charlie nods slowly, shamefully. In the past twenty-four hours since I’ve seen him, his face seems to have taken on a dozen new creases and worry lines, and another sharp jolt of guilt lances through me, so potent my breath hitches in my throat as I struggle to breathe.

“I brought her to the hospital immediately, of course I did,” Charlie says, his words tripping over themselves in his evident haste to get them out, “and they sent her to the psych ward for a month or two. I don’t think she ever forgave me for that, but what else could I have done? Believe her when she said she wouldn’t do it again?”

He shakes his head ruefully.

“She left me not long afterwards,” He continues, short and fast, as though every word that comes out of his mouth isn’t causing my head to crack open, little by little. “I could’ve gotten full custody, since the court had her hospital records with them, and I know now that I should’ve, but- Bella, honey, you’ve got to understand,” He says, when he sees the look on my face. “I was in an even worse state than Renee was after she left. I couldn’t imagine taking care of myself, much less a baby who needed constant care and supervision- hell, I’d almost lost my job at the station, since I hadn’t reported in weeks.

“And I really did thing Renee was getting better,” he finishes in a rush. “She _seemed_ better after she got back. Hell, she seemed happier than she had in the past few years we’d been married. When I heard she’d…”

He runs an agitated hand through his hair. I understand now, why Esme kept on trying to touch me while I was at the Cullens. There are no words I can possibly say to make this better, nothing I can say that couldn’t be conveyed in a rib-cracking embrace, but I feel like a live wire right now, and Charlie’s eyes are once again welling with tears. _Electricity and water don’t mix well,_ comes the nonsensical thought in the back of my head.

“I don’t know if Phil knew about her mental health history,” Charlie says, after a painful pause. “And I wasn’t about to call him up to inform him of it, but now I think- maybe if I’d said something, gave him some warning signs- or you, for that matter-, something could’ve been done. I could’ve stopped her somehow, like I had before, or- I could’ve-“

Though my tongue feels like lead in my mouth, I have to say something.

“Dad,” I say, as forcefully as I can muster. “Nobody could’ve stopped Mom from doing what she did, and it’s not y- _anybody’s_ fault. She was sick, and it was just a matter of time before something like this happened. Phil definitely would’ve written you off as an angry ex if you’d tried to say anything, and-“ the shame rises in my throat like bile- “I would’ve, too, if you told me then what you told me now. Mom was good at pretending to be happy. Nobody could’ve anticipated that she’d do what she did.”

Charlie sighs. Another painful pause ensues, so long I’m tempted to slam my hands on the table or release the scream that’s been sticking to the back of my throat just to break the awful silence, until he finally speaks.

“You really weren’t going to kill yourself?” He asks, voice muted. Too ashamed for words, I nod my head, and he gives a nod back in response, short and jerky.

“Okay,” He says roughly, pushing himself back from the table. The sound of the kitchen chair scraping across linoleum makes me wince. “I’d ask why you came back, but I- I’m going to be honest with you, Bella. I don’t know if I want to hear the answer.”

“Dad,” I begin, voice breaking, but he just shakes his head, eyes fluttering shut as if the very sight of me pains him.

“It’s not your fault,” He whispers, eyes still shut, “and I love you, but right now I just need to have a lie-down. I’ve, um- I’ve had a pretty bad day.”

I have to press my lips together to avoid inadvertently letting out the hysterical laugh that bubbles in my throat. I watch him leave, his steps shambling, zombie-like, as he treads past the kitchen threshold and out of sight. I listen to his steps on the floorboards, creaking under the weight, and the sound of his bedroom door closing shut, resounding in the awful silence that’s descended upon the house.

I sit at the table for five minutes, then ten, then fifteen, before I finally force myself to get up and follow in Charlie’s footsteps up the stairs and to my room. I close my door quietly, not wanting to disturb Charlie any more than I already have, and when I turn around, Emmett is sitting on my bed.

He watches me wordlessly, though his furrowed eyebrows give away his concern. I take a deep breath before I kick off my shoes, fold my jacket neatly on my chair, and then sit down on the bed beside him, staring down at my hands like I’ve never quite seen them before.

“Alice told me what happened,” He says, quieter than I’ve ever heard him sound before. “Are you okay?”

It’s funny. My eyes had been relatively dry following Charlie’s explanation of Mom’s first suicide attempt, but that simple question- so softly asked, as though he’s afraid that speaking loudly will cause me to shatter into a million pieces- causes them to blur with tears. Mutely, I shake my head. To Emmett’s credit, he doesn’t try to push, or console me with the banalities that had been coursing through my head as I’d tried to figure out how to console Charlie.

Instead, he opens his arms wide, and I let out a shuddery exhale before crawling into his embrace, squeezing my eyes shut as he pulls me against his chest. He says nothing, only shushes me gently when I attempt to speak, and I fall silent as I rest my head against the crook of his neck.

After what could’ve been five minutes or five hours, I’m all but collapsed against him, slowly drifting into unconsciousness. It’s been so long since I’ve had somebody’s arms around me, and though Emmett’s muscled build has nothing in common with my mom’s willowy frame, I can almost pretend it’s her who’s holding me, consoling me after a nightmare, or after I scraped my knees against the asphalt.

He lowers me against the bed, as gentle as though he’s handling spun glass, but when he begins pulling away, I tighten my vice-like hold on his neck.

“Don’t go,” I whisper, the words coming almost unbidden from my lips. “Don’t leave me.”

I can feel him hesitate. Afraid I’ll lose my courage if I open my eyes, I pull him down, unseeingly, beside me. I don’t know what I’d do if he’d pulled away, but he seems to guess at the sheer dependence my mental health has on his presence, because he goes willingly, allowing me to use him as a glorified teddy bear as I lower my head onto his chest.

“It’s okay, Bella,” he murmurs. “Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake.”

It’s with this promise, and his long fingers stroking my hair, that I finally fall asleep.

Mom gives another appearance in my dreamscape, but the dream itself is vague and blurry as trying to open your eyes underwater. There’s a flash of her at the kitchen table, baking something in the cracked clay bowl she’s been using for the past seventeen years. She sings something under her breath, something about gypsy moths and moonlight, and when she sees me standing in the doorway, smiles and beckons for me to join her, but my legs feel heavy as stone.

Though I try to walk towards her, I’m rooted in place, and her eyes flash with hurt before she sets the bowl down on the counter and storms past me in a huff. It’s only when she’s gone that I can finally move my legs, and when I step towards the counter and peer into the bowl, I realize that it’s not filled with brownie mix, but blood, thick and viscous as I slowly lower one finger down into it to taste.

I wake up just before my finger makes contact with the bowl’s contents. I’m drenched in sweat, though I feel colder than usual, and it’s only when I open my eyes that I realize it’s because Emmett’s arms are still entwined around me. His eyes are open, and this close to him, I can see little flecks of brown buried in the gold of them.

“Shh,” He whispers, moving my hair away from my face with one crooked finger. “Go back to sleep. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”

This time, I dream of nothing at all.


	12. Chapter 12

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. I jolt up, swearing slightly as the abrupt movement causes my head to spin nauseatingly for a few seconds, before I look around my room. It’s empty, a soft breeze levitating the curtains of my open window, and the realization that I’m alone shouldn’t cause such a perverse disappointment to flood through me. Had I really been expecting Emmett- Emmett, who can barely stand still for a second at any given moment- to have allowed me to use him as a pillow for nine hours straight? And why, _why,_ did I even want him to?

_Nope. Not going there._

Groaning, I force myself to get up from my bed and close the window. But just as I grab hold of the raised, plastic edge of the glass, a face pops up into view, and I stab myself in the hip with the corner of my desk as I jump back. The scream ripping itself from my throat is short-lived, however, when I realize who the face belongs to.

“Sorry,” Emmett says as he climbs through the window, and it would be almost believable, had it not been for the smile in his voice as he closes the window behind him, one-handed. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

I scoff disbelievingly, rubbing the bruise on my hip, but my ire settles when I realize what’s in his free hand.

“Is that-“

“Breakfast,” he grins, waving the tightly bound paper bag in the air. It’s so greasy, a puddle has congealed at the bottom, and the smell of tater tots and cooked meat causes my stomach to growl, embarrassingly loud. “I wasn’t sure what you like, so I just got some of everything. It’s from the diner that you and Ja-“

He stops himself, but it’s too late. I gawk at him.

“How do you know where Jacob and I eat?” I ask slowly. And though I know it’s impossible, I swear I can see Emmett’s cheeks flush as he takes a seat on the edge of my bed, resting the hot bag on his thigh unflinchingly.

“Alice may’ve been keeping tabs on you,” He murmurs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not too invasively or anything, just- we needed to know where you were at all times. Rosalie was pretty hell-bent on, uh-“

“Draining me of all blood?” I guess, and he winces a little.

“Yeah. That.” An awkward pause ensues, before he clears his throat. “Listen, Bella. I stopped by the house on my way here, and Carlisle says he thinks you should come over after school for your therapy session.”

I feel my heart lurch in my chest.

“So soon?” I croak, mouth abruptly so dry, I can feel my lips pressing uncomfortably into my gums as I speak. “It’s been less than a day since I spoke with him!”

Emmett gives me a sympathetic look, and I have to tamp down on the resentment that suddenly balloons in my chest. It’s not his fault I’ve come into an arrangement where I’m being psychoanalyzed by his father on the daily, but it’s not like I can voice my anger to Carlisle himself.

“It’s what he said, Bella,” Emmett says softly, soothingly, as though he’s talking to a panicked horse. “I can tell him you’re busy, but-“

I can’t help the derisive snort that erupts from my throat.

“Please,” I say, before taking a seat on the bed beside him with a heaving sigh. “It’s fine. He told me it was either this or doing group therapy with fourteen-year-olds with debilitating anger management problems, so…”

The corners of his lips quirk up, and I realize, with a start, that our thighs are pressed together.

“I don’t think he worded it _exactly_ like that,” Emmett murmurs, watching my face explode into flames, before handing me the paper bag on his lap. “Here. Go eat, do all your human business, and then meet me downstairs. I’ll bring the car around front.”

“I can drive-“

“Nope,” He says cheerfully, popping the “p.” “It makes more sense for me to drop you off at school, since we’re going to have to bring you back to the house anyway. Besides, I took the liberty of checking your truck’s engine, and Bella, when I say that thing is older than I am, I’m not kidding.”

“Hey!” I gasp, not even pretending at being affronted as I glare at him. “That ‘thing’ has been taking me to and from school for months. Besides, if it’s really as old as you say, you better show some respect to your elders.”

“Sure,” Emmett agrees affably, as he lifts himself off my bed. “I’ll show just as much respect as you do when you insulted a man who was around when your ancestors came here on the Mayflower.”

Before I can even formulate a response to that, he’s on the other side of the room in the blink of an eye, lifting one leg over my windowsill. When he catches me staring at him, jaw dropped like an idiot, he gives me a wink, and then proceeds to drop out of sight. I gasp, pushing the bag onto my bed before dashing over, but when I peer out my window, there’s no mangled body waiting for me down below.

“Show-off,” I grumble, and swear I can hear a huff of laughter above me.

* * *

Jessica bombards me as soon as I slide into my seat in Trig.

“’Fess up,” She commands, loud enough to be heard over the clamor of groggy students entering the classroom. If she had a tail, it’d be wagging with abandon as she leans towards me, her eyes gleaming with unspoken questions as she braces her left hand against my desk for balance. “What the hell _was_ that?”

“What the hell was what?” I ask innocently as I unzip my backpack, the sight- or lack thereof- of my sketchbook still causing a jolt of pain to lance up my spine as I pull out my math notebook. “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.”

I’m not sure how someone can roll their eyes violently, but Jessica does with such theatricality, I’m a little surprised to see that her eyes don’t pop out of her skull.

“You know exactly what I mean,” She says accusingly. “The Cullens allowed you to sit with them yesterday, and you’re going to tell me every single word they said.”

“We talked about our favorite movies,” I say breezily. “Can you believe Jasper never saw The Polar Express?”

“Bella.” Jessica’s voice is hard as stone. “You promised.”

Shit. She really isn’t going to let go of this, is she?

I’m not great at improv- okay, I absolutely suck at improv-, but I need to figure out something that sounds both truthful and just juicy enough that she gets off my back. Mr. Koffmann’s giving us pointed glances as the sound of students chattering settle down, and I’m pretty sure Principal McGowan won’t have any qualms about expulsion, this time around. Which reminds me- I still have to do something about the drug tests. Maybe I can ask Jasper to-?

“Bella!” Jessica hisses, and my words escape me in a rush.

“We talked about my art,” I blurt out. “Edward was interested in my sketches, and I was going to show him my sketchbook, but it went missing, so I went to the lost-and-found to find it. That’s literally all we talked about. I promise.”

Jessica leans back in her seat, gaze narrowed.

“So you mean to tell me that the Cullens broke their three-year-long isolation _just_ to ask about your dick art?” She asks, voice tinged with suspicion, and I wince a little. That wasn’t juicy at all. I should’ve said something like, _Emmett and Rosalie are having relationship issues and they asked me to resolve it for them,_ or maybe, _Alice wanted to ask where I got my bitchin’ sense of style from, because we all know that wearing flannels on a daily basis is completely and utterly unique in Washington,_ or perhaps even, _We talked about the murders happening in the woods and I left when things got super uncomfortable._

“Yes,” I say forcefully, when I realize she’s still waiting for a response. “They wanted to know if I’d be willing to draw a faithful rendition of Edward’s big, hairy-“

“Do you have something you’d like to share with the class, girls?” Mr. Koffmann asks, folding his arms across his chest, and Jessica and I cringe in tandem.

“No, Mr. Koffmann,” Jessica says, tripping over the words in her haste to get them out. “We’re fine. Sorry.”

Jessica, thankfully, leaves the questions on the backburner for the rest of the period, but I can feel her searching gaze glued to the side of my face throughout Mr. Koffmann’s droning lecture of periodic functions, and I know the interrogation is going to continue well into lunch-time.

Which is why, as soon as we get to the cafeteria, I make a point to sit beside Angela, who greets me with a kind- if bemused- smile. It wilts, however, when she glances down at the long-sleeved shirt covering my wrists, and I know she hasn’t forgotten the fact that there was blood trickling down them just a day ago.

I don’t want to drag this out longer than it has to, so I murmur, quietly enough so that the others won’t hear, “I accidentally cut myself on my spiral notebook yesterday. Thanks for not saying anything to Jessica.”

In my defense, I have, in fact, cut myself on the metal piece of my spiral notebook before. I’m not sure if it’s a side effect of my being able to trip on smooth surfaces, or a side effect of my inability to try and kill myself with innocuous, every-day objects, but it’s happened twice in the past, so this is technically not a lie.

Angela doesn’t look too convinced, but she thankfully lets the subject drop with a nod and a, “Okay, good to know. I was really worried about you,” which leaves me with questions of my own. Before I can ask any of them, Mike and Eric join the table. Lauren is, very conspicuously, absent, and when I ask Angela about her disappearance, she grimaces.

“After the Port Angeles trip, she started hanging out with Katie Marshall and Jennifer Ford.”

“They’ve written off the cafeteria entirely to go smoke it up in the girls’ bathroom,” Eric informs us, with a snicker. “That entire hallway smells like weed for hours afterwards. Which is fine- I personally like getting contact highs-, but it’s weird that the security guard hasn’t caught them yet.”

“Lauren’s probably giving him BJs on the side,” Mike points out helpfully, and Eric nods with mock-solemnity. Neither of them have commented on my resurfacing at their table, and I’m not sure whether it’s because they’re trying to be kind, or because they lack so much self-awareness that they think I’ve been here this entire time. Either way, I’m grateful for their gratuitously sexual banter, because it means Jessica’s calling them both dweebs and I’m able to zone out, wondering how the hell I can ditch Carlisle’s therapy session today.

As if reading my mind, Angela nudges me, wide-eyed.

“The Cullens are looking at you,” She mutters, and I jolt upwards, hard enough that my knee almost breaks itself against the bottom of the lunch table. _Shit, shit!_ Can Edward read minds from across the cafeteria? Can he read _my_ mind? Do I look over at them, or do I remain utterly stone-faced, like I couldn’t be half-assed to even glance in their direction?

“Rosalie and Jasper are back,” someone whispers from across the table. I can’t help myself; I look up, and sure enough, the Cullen clan are together once more. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m aware of their true natures, now, but they look even more ethereal than usual, skin pale and glowing under the fluorescents of the cafeteria. Alice is perched on Jasper’s lap, giving me a winning smile when she sees me glancing in their direction, while Emmett has his arm slung across Rosalie’s shoulders, her face contorting with something that looks like pain as her eyes meet mine.

It’s impossible to gauge whether Edward can hear my thoughts- when I purposefully fill my head with the same sexual innuendos that’s fueling Mike and Eric’s banter, his neutral expression doesn’t twitch. Maybe he hasn’t overheard me attempting to wriggle my way out of meeting up with Carlisle today, then?

“Do you guys wanna do something after school?” I ask, attempting to sound nonchalant as I spear a piece of lettuce with my fork. “Like, go see a movie or something?”

But Angela’s already shaking her head apologetically before I’m even finished speaking.

“My mom won’t let me go out on weekdays,” She says. Eric’s backed up with yearbook shit- his words, not mine-, and Jessica’s still grounded for something she clearly doesn’t want to get into. Mike’s the only one available, and I can’t stammer out an excuse fast enough when I catch Jessica giving me a hard, sideways glance.

When I peek back over to the Cullens’ table, Emmett’s suppressing a smile. I bring my fork down on my tray, hard enough to accidentally jab holes into the paper.

“You don’t have to look so smug about it,” I mutter under my breath, and his smile only widens. Angela gives me a concerned look, but I shake my head slightly. My chest feels all tight, the way it does before I have to give a presentation I haven’t bothered to memorize to some forty-plus kids in a classroom, and I have to hide my hands under the table when I realize they’re shaking.

I don’t want to go through with this. It’s a belated realization, perhaps, but the potency of my repulsion at the idea of voicing my anxieties and sorrows to a sagely nodding man behind a desk is full-throated enough to make it feel like the air in the cafeteria is rapidly draining.

Now more than ever, I wish I didn’t lose my sketchbook. I would’ve drawn Carlisle being stabbed repeatedly in the chest with a wooden stake, or maybe a group of silhouettes cowering in fear as an awe-inspiring figure, clad in a black hood and scuffed-up sneakers, held a torch before them. Or maybe even just Lauren Mallory’s face, being smothered with a dozen painfully detailed dicks- that, at least, would’ve released some of my pent-up anxiety. But nope. My sketchbook’s gone, probably for good, and along with it, what little composure I had left.

I never really considered myself the type to look a gift horse in the mouth- especially one that I’ve been desperately chasing after I botched my first chances with Jessica and the others-, but now, the thought of being around anyone causes my stomach to lurch violently. I mutter something barely coherent about going to the bathroom before I clamber up from my seat and walk out of the cafeteria like there’s something nipping at my heels.

I find myself in the school parking lot after half a minute, glancing around for a truck that isn’t here because, surprise surprise, Emmett forced me to ride shotgun with him to school today. I wonder, vaguely, if Alice had anticipated that I would’ve tried to escape before coming to the conclusion that she _definitely_ anticipated I’d try to escape.

I sink down on the front steps leading up to the entrance, tilting my head up to the light drizzle that’s been keeping up since this morning, before I fish my phone from my pocket. I don’t know who I’m about to call until Phil’s voice suddenly fills my ear.

“Hello?” He asks, voice groggy with sleep. “Who is this?”

I freeze like a deer in headlights. I haven’t heard that voice since he’d awkwardly told me goodbye outside the Phoenix Airport. My finger tenses over the “end call” button, but instead of pressing it and leaving this whole mess behind me, I hear myself speaking in response.

“It’s Bella,” I say- whisper, more like-, and hear him freeze in turn. When he finally speaks, his tone is bewildered and wide-awake.

“Bella?” He repeats, after a beat or two. “What are you- is everything okay?”

I hear someone murmuring a question faintly in the background. It’s a female voice, and the knot in the pit of my stomach tightens even further.

“Did you know that Mom tried to kill herself before?” I blurt out, keeping my eyes trained on the empty parking lot before me. “Because she did, apparently. Da- Charlie told me about it. Did she ever say anything to you?”

“She tried to-“ Phil’s voice breaks off, and I can almost see the expression on his face- hard and unyielding- as he composes himself over the phone. “No. She never said anything to me about that. Bella, honey, I’m sorry, but now’s not a good time. Can you call me b-“

“Who are you with?” I demand desperately. I want him to keep talking- I _need_ him to keep talking, need him to distract me from the clamor of my own brain. “Is that one of the ‘old college buddies’ you’ve moved in with?”

Awful, painful silence on the other end. Then-

“I don’t like your tone of voice,” Phil says, and I scoff, but I have to bite back a silent cheer as I do so. Any talking- even when he raises his voice, unnecessarily defensive- is still talking.

“What tone of voice?” I ask, in a tone that I know is only going to aggravate him further, and I hear him heave a deep sigh as he readjusts his phone.

“I’m allowed to move on, Isabella,” He says, which cuts my good mood short. When I scoff this time, it’s with earnest disbelief.

“Move on?” I repeat, the words tasting sour in my mouth as my hackles raise. “Move on? How- how fucking _dare_ \- she died only a few months ago!”

“And she’d been cheating on me for months before that!” Phil shouts back breathlessly, with just as much righteous anger in his voice, and it’s so cliché and Days of our Lives-esque that I almost laugh before I realize he’s being deathly serious. I nearly drop my phone onto the wet concrete steps below me as his words ring in my ears, as the world seems to still, the raindrops falling agonizingly slow as they splash against my jeans and the crown of my head.

I only manage to regain my voice after a minute has passed.

“She was cheating on you?” I ask, sounding warped to my own ears as I speak. “Are you certain?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Phil snaps, still breathing hard. “I found emails from her and her- _paramour_ -, but when I confronted her about it, she said it was just a fling, just an old boyfriend that came up out of the blue and asked her to coffee. And she said yes, why not, it was good to see what mistakes she’d avoided making from the past-“ and here he took up Mom’s particular cadence, the pitter-patter of her daily speech-, “but then he’d convinced her to come back home with him, etcetera. She said they’d gotten drunk, and she’d told me it was a one-night thing, but then she killed herself the next day, so hey, what do I know?”

The female voice in the background grows louder with concern, and I press my free hand over my eyes as my head begins to spin ominously, the telltale sign of a migraine that’s going to last for the entire day.

How much of my mother did I know? How much of her was sealed off to me? First I learn she’d attempted to commit suicide in the past, and now I learn she’d been having an affair with an ex-boyfriend right before she died- what else could she have been keeping from me? A secret sibling she’d given up for adoption years ago? A family tree composed entirely of vampire and ghost hunters? Maybe I’d consumed my twin in the womb, and she’d decided never to tell me. Or maybe she killed a man in Reno, and his ghost followed her all the way to Arizona. I never thought her capable of it before, but now…

I move my hand up to grip the roots of my hair, trying to ground myself. Now isn’t the time for a freak-out, as justified as it would be.

“Did you believe her?” I hear myself asking from far away. “When she said it was just a one-night stand?”

“Maybe,” comes Phil’s stiff reply. “But the pictures in those emails were sent long after their supposed ‘coffee date’. And why, why, _why_ would she have killed herself if it wasn’t because I’d figured out the truth? Nobody would commit suicide after an innocent mistake with an old flame! No, the only logical explanation is that she’d been keeping this up for a while, now, and I was too blind to see it.

“And the worst part is,” Phil continues, sounding more and more aggravated with each passing second, “I had to write her eulogy, I had to make the plans for the funeral, I had to be consoled as the chief mourner- and all the while, I wanted to scream to the world that she never loved me, and maybe she never loved anyone. When I wrote in her eulogy that anything with her was possible, I meant it. Anything _was_ possible- even the worst. I loved her, and she- she-“

He breaks into muffled, staticky sobs, and I hear the phone exchange hands before the same female voice from before pipes up, tone hard as a diamond as she speaks past the weeping in the background.

“Isabella?” She asks, not waiting for a response before she continues. “Please don’t call this line again. I’m sure this must be painful for you, but references to your mother are still extremely triggering for him. As it is, I’m going to have to schedule another appointment with Doctor Pearson today- oh, Phil, let me get you some tissue paper-“

Abruptly, the line goes dead. I stare at my phone for a long while, so innocuously pink and bulky in the palm of my hand, before I brace my arm backwards and throw the thing as far away as I can manage. It sails above the parking lot, its arc almost graceful, before it hits the windshield of Tyler Crowley’s car and sends a huge crack ripping up the glass, the car alarm going off almost immediately.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

* * *

I make the very deliberate decision to skip my sixth period after I find that I can barely function in my fifth, waiting until the hallways have cleared out before heading back outside and over to Emmett’s Jeep. To my surprise, I find that he and the others have already clambered inside, waiting for me as he rolls down the window and beckons me inside.

“I saw your decision back in fifth,” Alice explains as I climb in, sandwiching her between Jasper and Rosalie. “We thought it’d be best if we met you out here now instead of after school.”

I grunt in response, before turning my attention out the window. I can feel three pairs of eyes on me (four, if you include the little glances Edward thinks I don’t notice in the rearview mirror), but I’ve gotten pretty adept at ignoring the prodding gazes of the Cullen- clan? Family? The former sounds far better than the latter right now-, so I keep my eyes trained on the trees that move by in a blur as we race down the empty streets at breakneck speed.

“Why’d you go out of the cafeteria in such a rush?” Alice asks, breaking the slightly tense silence that’s descended on the car, and I snort without humor.

“Couldn’t you see why?” I ask, as snidely as I can muster, and she shakes her head with a sincerity that makes me feel immediately, viscerally guilty.

“No. Just that you’d decided to sit on the steps.”

“You can catch your death like that,” Rosalie murmurs quietly from across the back seat. “It’s raining, and you’re not even wearing a coat. Which reminds me- Emmett, put the damn heater on.”

It’s so impossibly weird to hear Rosalie Hale being concerned for me, but though I’d be weirdly touched in any other circumstance, I can’t feel anything past the headache that has grown- just as I expected it to- in the back of my head to a migraine of epic proportions.

“Yes, ma’am,” Emmett says, a smile in his voice as he leans over to turn the heater on full blast. I haven’t even realized I’ve been shivering until the warm air hits my skin, and I sink back against the seat, idly writing a _Help me!!!_ with my index finger on the rapidly evaporating condensation of the window. It’s not like it’ll do much good- we’re going too fast for anybody to possibly see-, but at least I can say I tried. 

We arrive at the Cullens’ house in under fifteen minutes, an impressive feat considering the fact that it takes me twenty to drive to school from my place, which isn’t an isolated mansion in the woods far from the rest of society. I drag myself out of the car sluggishly, glancing at the surrounding woods before coming to the immediate conclusion that Alice, who’s trailing behind me, would most definitely anticipate my decision to run off, screaming like a banshee, and drag me back to the house by my ankles.

Alice smiles.

“Good decision,” she says, and I have to resist the urge to punch her as I follow the others into the house.

Esme’s waiting for us as soon as we step inside, but though she greets her children with hugs and kisses, her eyes are trained on me throughout it all. As soon as she’s done giving a long-suffering Rosalie a tight embrace, she steps forward and kisses me delicately on the cheek.

“It’s so good to see you, Bella,” She murmurs, moving away before I can take a few stumbling steps backwards. “I’m baking some cookies in the oven; as soon as you’re finished up with Carlisle, please come downstairs and I’ll give you some.”

 _The only thing missing is a floral-patterned apron and a beehive hairdo,_ but the snark dies off when her eyes meet mine, shining and hopeful and eager. Instead, I find myself nodding in mute agreement, and am rewarded by a delighted clap of her hands and a promise to keep the cookies warm and fresh until I'm finished with Carlisle. 

“Find me before you come down,” Rosalie says as she passes by, so quickly I’ve barely registered her words before she’s lopping up the stairs and out of sight. I stare unseeingly at the space she occupied less than a second ago.

“Relax, Bella,” Jasper says from over my shoulder. “It’s going to be alright.”

The wave of calm that rolls over me is decisively artificial, but I still can’t help but melt into it as I follow him upstairs, down a long corridor filled with elaborate paintings- both contemporary and ancient- I have no doubt are all originals, and probably more expensive than the contents of any other museum I’ve ever wandered through.

“Through here,” He says, gesturing to a door on my right, and I nod. Another wave of calm passes through me, but it fades as he gently touches my shoulder before disappearing back down the hallway.

Before I can muster my courage and knock on the door, it suddenly opens. Carlisle stands before me, somehow even more tall and imposing than the last time I saw him. He’s still outfitted in his scrubs, his lab coat, but it only serves to accentuate the whiteness of his teeth as he smiles down at me.

“Please, Bella,” He says. “Won’t you come in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor tyler's going to be in for a surprise when he gets out of sixth period
> 
> also i prooomise that the renee cheating subplot has a purpose she's a very complex and nuanced character and sometimes that's best accentuated by seemingly shitty and immoral behavior. like if bojack horseman was a middle-aged woman from the arizona suburbs


	13. Chapter 13

“Can I use your landline to call my dad?” is the first thing that I blurt out, as soon as I step inside Carlisle’s office. It’s a big one, lavish without being ostentatious- the oak paneled walls are bare, though high quality, and lined with huge wooden bookshelves, heavily laden with thick tomes I wouldn’t be surprised to learn are from hundreds of centuries ago.

His desk sits smack dab in the middle of the room, sitting atop a finely detailed Kashan rug. The sleek computer resting on top of the desk’s surface should be at odds with the timeless aspect of the office, but instead it only serves as a testament to Carlisle’s careful design choices that it- and the bulky chassis beneath- meshes well with the rest of the room.

_Damn him. Is there anything he isn’t good at?_

When I turn back from my marveling to look at him, there’s a crease between his finely shaped eyebrows.

“What happened to your phone?” He asks, and though it’s an innocuous question, I cringe back as though I’ve been slapped. For a second I debate whether or not to tell him the truth. Finally coming to the disquieting realization that he can probably sense the tics of a liar- racing heartbeat, sweaty palms, flickering eye movements- as easily as breathing, I opt for the former.

“I threw it at Tyler Crowley’s car after I learned my mom had been having an affair before her death,” I say as breezily as I can manage, before taking a seat in the armchair facing Carlisle’s desk. “My truck’s been in the driveway all day, so I don’t know how he thinks I got to school. If he thinks I went to school at all, I mean.”

Carlisle doesn’t move, and for a moment I think he’s going to stay standing statue-still behind my chair for the remainder of our therapy session, but then the floorboards creak gently under his weight, and he’s sliding into the seat opposite mine, the crease between his brows substituted by the corners of his lips tugging downwards.

“Please,” is all he says, gesturing towards the landline on his desk. I reach over and have a momentary internal freak-out where I think I’ve forgotten my own father’s phone number, before it finally clicks and I jab his number into the machine. I’m not sure how the hell I’m going to explain what happened to my phone, but that’s a conversation I think best saved for a time where Carlisle isn’t staring at me from across the desk.

Charlie answers on the eighth ring.

“Hello?” He asks, voice thick with sleep, and I blink as I glance at the antique clock sitting on the bookshelf behind Carlisle’s desk. It’s almost four o’clock; shouldn’t he be at work by now?

“Dad?” I ask tentatively. “It’s Bella. I’m calling from the Cullens’ landline.”

“The Cul- what are you doing there?” He asks bewilderedly, and the entire exchange is far too reminiscent of the one I just had with Phil for my liking.

“Emmett Cullen and his siblings wanted me to hang out with them after school,” I say, thinking quickly, but not quick enough- I can hear the gears in Charlie’s mind slowly turning, even through the landline.

“I didn’t know you were friends with the Cullens,” He says slowly. _Me neither,_ I think to myself.

“It’s a recent development,” I mutter, refusing to meet Carlisle’s eyes as I speak. “Emmett picked me up from home on his way to school, since my truck was acting up- didn’t you see it in the driveway?”

“I actually only got up now,” Charlie admits, sounding- sheepish? Ashamed?- as he adjusts his phone against his ear. “I called in sick to work today. First time in nineteen years that I’ve ever done that. I kept on thinking about what you said, and how we left that last conversation, and-“

Oh, no. Nope. I’m not having this conversation in front of Carlisle, and his prying eyes, and his prying ears- and probably the ears of everybody else in this godforsaken house. Emmett clearly demonstrated only a few hours ago how his hearing extended all the way across a noisy cafeteria; this entire conversation is probably being broadcasted, loud and clear, for every supernatural creature within a five-mile radius.

“Dad,” I say quickly, trying desperately to find the combination of words that will get him off my back as soon as possible, “you’re totally right. I think we really need to sit down and talk about everything some more. You’ve been super patient with me, and I know it probably doesn’t mean much, but I’m glad I didn’t leave for Arizona. I know it’s taken me a while to come to terms with it, but Forks is my home now.”

I sound like I belong in a Lifetime movie as I bluster through my monologue, I know, but I’m hate being put on the spot like this- especially in front of someone who’s definitely going to jot this entire exchange down, word for word, to study for future analysis of my troubled psyche once I’m gone. Luckily, Charlie seems to believe me, and after a few stammered words of approval, we agree to talk once I get back to the house.

I cannot slam the receiver down fast enough. Carlisle, steepling his hands together atop the desk, looks at me with curious eyes.

“Are you truly planning on continuing your earlier conversation with Charlie, or was that simply something you made up to get him to end the call?” He asks, and though there’s no judgment in his voice, I know what answer he wants to receive- preferably an, _Oh, yes, Doctor Cullen, and after we share our feelings with each other, I’m going to allow him to teach me how to fish and hunt and watch sports to better solidify the tumultuous foundation upon which our relationship is built!_

“I don’t see how that’s possible,” I finally say, leaning back against the chair, “given that I’ll definitely tell him what Phil told me if he pushes hard enough. And he’s definitely going to want to push- I barely gave him anything of substance in our last conversation.”

“What did you speak about?” Carlisle questions, and I wince when I realize that our therapy session has officially begun. He’s good- I barely noticed him leading me down this rabbit-hole in the first place.

“Uh, about the suicide he found on the dining table that I managed to convince him wasn’t a suicide note after all,” I say brazenly, suddenly straightening up from my slumped position in the armchair. I find it so much easier to speak to Carlisle when I take on the bold, careless tone of a teenage ingenue from a 1940s film noir.

I hope he doesn’t call me out on it.

Carlisle doesn’t speak, but the question is implicit in his eyes. I sigh. Every word that I say, no matter how impudently I say it, feels like teeth that are being ripped straight out of my gums. _Either this or traumatized fourteen-year-olds in the psych ward,_ I try to remind myself.

“I told him that it was a running away note,” I admit, balancing my cheek on my fist as I struggle to maintain my devil-may-care tone that is rapidly leaving me, seeping through my open pores the longer I sit in this chair. How long have we been here- _three minutes?_

I bite back a groan as I speak. “He believed me- or at least he led me to believe that he believed me-, but I’m pretty sure that was the final blow. I mean, it’s bad enough he’s saddled with me as his daughter. To think that I can’t even muster enough gratitude to him to stick around until grad- _can_ the others hear me right now?”

Carlisle blinks, seemingly taken aback by my own interruption, before he regains his composure.

“I made sure to tell them to occupy themselves during our session,” He says soothingly- too soothingly, maybe. I eye him suspiciously as he continues, “They’re either listening to music or watching television with the volume turned up. I understand the need for privacy, perhaps more than others in my profession. In a house where all the inhabitants have super hearing, it’s admittedly hard to carve out a private place for yourself.”

Vampires attempting to find privacy in a domestic setting is far and above a better conversation to have than whatever the hell is going on with my own head, and I tell him as much.

“Why can’t we talk about this instead?” I complain, and Carlisle inclines his head to me, a private smile playing on his lips.

“Let’s compromise,” He murmurs, watching my expression carefully. “I’ll ask you a question, and you’ll try to answer that question as best you can- unless, of course, you feel it oversteps the bounds of your comfort zone, at which point you are unquestionably within your right to pass. Afterwards, you can ask me a question about whatever it is that fascinates you about our kind, and I’ll answer it to the best of my ability. How does that sound?”

 _Like a glorified Twenty Questions,_ I think to myself, but again, refrain from saying.

Instead, I say, “This entire day is overstepping the bounds of my comfort zone, but fine. Ask away.”

“How did you learn of your mother’s affair?” comes the question, quick as lightning, and I huff out a laugh. He isn’t one for beating around the bush, at least. I pause, trying to choose my words carefully before I speak.

“I called Phil,” I say after a beat, and at Carlisle’s bemused look, add, “my stepfather. Ex-stepfather, I guess, which is kind of a weird relationship to have with someone, now that I think about it. Anyway, I called him for some stupid reason, and he was in bed with some stupid woman, and when I called him a stupid piece of shit for sleeping with someone so soon after Mom died, he admitted that he’d found emails between her and her old boyfriend from, like, high school or college or wherever.”

I’m breathing a little too heavily when I’m finished, but Carlisle’s face is entirely impassive- or, rather, it’s schooled into an expression of calm understanding, which is only a rung above entirely impassive. I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“Your turn,” I say, a little too quickly, and the corners of his lips quirk upwards once more.

“Ask away,” He says, lifting his palms up and fanning them across his desk in a show of benevolence.

“How old are you?” I ask eagerly, momentarily forgetting my discomfort as I lean forward in my chair. Call me fickle, but it’s not everyday that you get to speak with a vampire- or, in my case, speak with a vampire about anything other than my deep-set issues.

Carlisle pauses for a long while, the tease, and when he finally speaks, it’s with an undercurrent of amusement in his voice.

“I was born in London, England, in the year 1640,” He says slowly, slyly, and I can’t help the gasp that emerges from my throat. I stare at him with huge eyes, either unable or unwilling to believe that the man sitting in front of me- impossibly handsome as he is, evidence of the absurd amounts of wealth he’s accumulated over the years all around us as it is-, is a century older than America.

And yet another part of my brain- the tiny sliver that hasn’t been utterly rotted by cynicism yet- can easily believe it. In fact, it seems almost a too-perfect explanation for his beauty, for his wealth, his patience. Nobody’s eyes are that kind and that expressive- and, for that matter, that exact shade of gold-, after only a short twenty-some years of life.

“And what about the rest of you?” I demand, my voice no doubt betraying my excitement, and he grins at me.

“That’s two questions,” He points out, but before my face can fall, he adds in a quick, practice aside, “Jasper, being the second eldest of us in chronological order, if not in age, was born in 1844, followed by Esme in 1895, then Edward and Alice in 1901, and finally, Rosalie and Emmett in 1915.”

There’s a multitude of reactions begging to be released inside me, but I eventually land on the half-hysterical laugh that’s been crawling up my throat throughout Carlisle speaking.

“You guys are old as fuck,” I murmur, shaking my head. Carlisle doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, and I feel just a bit cruel as I add, “Don’t you feel like a cradle-robber, dating someone two and a half centuries younger than you?”

To my surprise, he smiles wryly at the question.

“That depends,” he responds, voice smooth as butter. “Do you feel like a baby in the cradle when Emmett lavishes his attentions onto you?”

I gasp, stuttering and stammering out disbelieving admonishments while Carlisle’s expression remains serene as an undisturbed lake, though he bites his bottom lip at times, as if to avoid bursting out into laughter.

Eventually, once I calm down, he says, “A joke, of course, though admittedly in poor taste. My apologies, Bella.”

I cross my arms over my chest, still huffy.

“You knew exactly what you were doing,” I say accusingly, but it lacks heat, and we drift into a companionable silence before Carlisle sits forward, his face suddenly gone soft and serious.

“Why do you think you chose to call Phil now, of all times?” He asks quietly, and I sigh.

“I guess I wanted something that reminded me of Mom,” I admit in a low voice. “I shouldn’t have, I know- the last e-mail he wrote to me was pretty one-ended-, but I couldn’t help myself. I just-“

I break off, struggling to collect my thoughts, as Carlisle watches patiently from across the desk.

“I want to be close to her,” I whisper, unable to move my gaze away from my hands, clenched tightly together in my lap. “She kept so many things secret from me when she was alive, things I only learned from other people, and it- it makes me wonder if I ever really knew her at all. Or if she was showing me only a few parts of herself, because she thought that maybe I wouldn’t accept her, or- or love her, which is _ridiculous-_ she’s my mom, I would’ve loved her no matter what she’d done.

“And now,” I continue, blinking quickly so Carlisle doesn’t see the tears beginning to form in my eyes, “I keep on having these dreams of her, and it’s like she’s trying to tell me something from wherever she is- or maybe it’s not her at all, maybe it’s just me, just my own wishful think-“

“What do you think she’s trying to tell you, Bella?” Carlisle interrupts calmly, but I shake my head through the tears that are now beginning to fall in earnest.

“It’s my turn,” I manage to choke out. He sits back in his seat, frowning in disapproval, but I couldn’t care less. My heart feels like it’s about to jump right out of my chest, which in turn feels too tight to house my heart in, and I am suddenly desperate to get away from the analytical gleam in Carlisle’s eyes that I’m only half-sure I’m imagining. “What have you found out about the girls in the woods? The dead ones?”

Carlisle heaves a sigh, rubbing a hand over his face in a very human gesture before he speaks.

“They belong to nobody we know,” He says, after an unbearably long pause. “The Denalis swear their innocence, and we would’ve heard of another clan moving through this territory by now. Our best guess is that they’re the cause of a rogue vampire, maybe two. If they were bigger than that, the Volturi would’ve headed this way by now.”

“The Volt-“

But Carlisle’s shaking his head forcefully.

“Not important,” he says, in a tone that suggests they’re highly important, and he’s attempting to shield just how important they are. “Esme and Alice are supposed to patrol Forks’ borders tonight, but the killings have never strayed far from the Clallam Bay and Amanda Park areas. With luck, those responsible will pass through, and the Volturi will have sent an agent to deal with them- though, naturally, we think it’s best if we deal with the newcomer ourselves. They might be newborns, after all, and unaware of the rules that dictate our kind.”

“Yeah, newborns that target girls who look exactly like me,” I mutter, but drop the subject when Carlisle abruptly asks about my upbringing in Arizona. The session continues that way for the next forty-five minutes, a curious sort of back-and-forth that leaves Carlisle laden with knowledge about my relatively lackadaisical childhood, and me about the intricate workings of vampiric social hierarchies and communities, which I don’t really think is a fair trade.

Still, he allows me to leave after the next forty-five minutes are up, scheduling me in for the same day next week, and it speaks as a testament to my desire to get the hell out of his office that I don’t even attempt to try and push it back even further.

My breath comes back to me in a rush as I close the door behind me- and then leaves me all over again, rapidly as though through a popped balloon. Rosalie said to come see her after I was done with my session.

I stand awkwardly in the corridor for a minute, then two, before I finally throw caution to the wind and say, “Rosalie,” out loud. Immediately I feel stupid, but after a moment, a door further down the hall creaks open, and Rosalie peeks out.

She beckons me, and I inch closer, feeling as though I’m planting both feet inside the whale’s mouth as I pass through the threshold of her bedroom door. It’s a minimalistic bedroom, few rugs or paintings adorning the spotless white walls, but there are framed photos hanging above the large canopy bed in the center of the room. When I absently step closer to peer at them, I realize, with a belated start, that they’re wedding photos.

The one nearest to the left is obviously the oldest. Though the photo quality is poor, the color monochromatic, the people in them are obviously happy, all smiles towards the camera as the bride lifts her bouquet high into the air while the groom watches, his head tilted up towards the sun. The bride’s outstretched arm hides half her face, but the groom is, undoubtedly, Emmett, his eyes gleaming with childlike glee as the bouquet sails high above his head.

The one in the middle looks like it’d been taken in the seventies; Rosalie is fully visible in this photo, and her dress is a lovely, off-shoulder slip, delicately bohemian as the tip of her painted toes and her strappy sandals hang in the air while Emmett, his hair hilariously shaggy and tousled, lifts her into his arms, pressing his lips against her cheek while she squeals with delight.

The one to the right looks the newest. Rosalie, her hair loosely pinned in a high coiffeur as strands frame her face, looks over at the camera with hooded eyes while Emmett, his back turned, leads her into a slow dance, arm wrapped securely around her waist while his free hand engulfs her own in his grip. Her cheek rests on his shoulder, hand frozen as it plays with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“D’you like them?” asks a voice from the corner of the room, and I nearly jump out of my skin when I realize that it’s Emmett, half-hidden out of sight by a huge plotted plant as he perches on a comfortable, lived-in armchair that seems at odds with the rest of the room. “Esme took them all. Her dad used to run a photography company when she was a kid, and he taught her some cool tricks. For example, how to get vampires on camera.”

Rosalie groans from behind me.

“How many people have actually laughed at that joke, Em?” She asks as she comes into view, but her voice lacks any heat, and Emmett seems to know it perfectly well as he wiggles his eyebrows knowingly at her.

“Why did you ask me to come here, Rosalie?” I ask tiredly, and both their gazes snap to my face. Under usual circumstances, I wouldn’t take such a weary tone with the girl who has been known to daydream about my vicious and brutal murder, but right now, all I’d like to do is go home and curl under my comforter and never move again. Standing awkwardly in the center of the bedroom, with huge, splayed-out reminders of Rosalie and Emmett’s undying love plastered on the walls, isn’t part of the plan.

Besides, if there's even a chance they overheard Carlisle's little barb in the office, it's probably safer for me to get away as fast as possible before Rosalie decides to confront me about it. 

I watch her glance at Emmett now, biting her lip with uncharacteristic nervousness. Without a word, Emmett gets up, walks right past me, and ducks down to retrieve something under the bed. I feel my heart begin to pound loudly in my chest when he straightens back up, his prize clutched in his hand.

It's my sketchbook.

My hands grip it numbly as Emmett deposits it back into my arms, my head a loud roar of white noise as I stare down at it. It’s my sketchbook- the shitty black initials Phil carved into the front and all-, but it can’t be my sketchbook. I lost it somewhere at school, where it was promptly shoved into a trashcan, never to be recovered. Or maybe somebody stole it and used the remaining pages as scratch work for their Honors Calculus homework. But it can’t be here.

Before I ask the obvious, I flip the sketchbook open, eyes scanning past a dozen pages before I finally find what I’m looking for. Mom’s eyes, liquid blue, crow’s feet and all. I stare at it, the tears I’d thought I’d gone dry of in Carlisle’s office suddenly doubling as I abruptly clutch the sketchbook to my chest.

“Why do you have this?” I ask, my voice hoarse and low. I see Rosalie shift her weight on her legs out of the corner of my eye.

“Because- because I wanted to punish you,” Rosalie blurts out, sounding agonized as she speaks. I refuse to look up from where my eyes are glued to the floor to see if her face is as pained as her voice. “For making me feel the way you made me felt. Like I’d completely lost hold of the one thing that made me human- my understanding of a life’s worth.”

“So you’d had it for a while, then?” I whisper. I feel, rather than see, her nod, her long blonde hair brushing against the collar of her shirt and rustling the air as she does so.

“Since you went out with Emmett,” she murmurs, matching my pitch. “I made him grab it for me from your bag when you guys were in Port Angeles.”

I can’t help myself; my neck jerks upwards, ripping my gaze away from the floor as I look over at Emmett. He looks straight back at me, jaw clenched and eyes flickering with some unnamable emotion as we stare at each other.

“I’m sorry, Bella,” Rosalie says miserably, and I reluctantly tear my eyes away from his face to look over at her. I was right; her face is as agonized as I thought it was, her graceful features contorted with shame as she speaks. “I was a mess. I wanted to hurt you, and I didn’t know why, only that it had to be- bad. As bad as you made me feel.”

When I don’t say anything, she adds, tentatively, “You’re a good artist. I like the one where I’m doing that pointy-gesture thing facing the page.”

My face flames up with the reminder of the fact that I drew her doing cheesy finger-guns towards the viewer, and she notices, if the way she suddenly stills is any indication. Or, for that matter, how her eyes suddenly darken hungrily as her gaze bores into my face.

I turn to Emmett so quickly, I almost lose my balance.

“So this is why you watch me, huh?" I demand, trying hard to ignore the humiliated warmth that comes creeping up my neck as I speak. "Why you try so hard to be on- on fucking friendly terms with me? Because you felt guilty?”

He opens his mouth to respond, but I raise my hand to stop him.

“ _Don’t_ ,” I manage to get out through gritted teeth. “Don’t bother driving me home, either. I’ll walk.”

“But it’ll take hours-“

“So it’ll talk hours,” I interrupt, raising my voice slightly. “And maybe, if I’m lucky, the guy who’s killing girls who look like me will find me on the side of the road and drag me off into the woods. When that happens, you can look through my sketchbook all you want.”

I turn to leave, intending on swooping dramatically out of the room, but Rosalie’s suddenly grabbing my arm, tight enough that I can feel the cold of her fingers seeping through the thick fabric of my shirt. Her eyes are wide and guileless as she speaks, and I might have the weakest resolve in all of Forks, because I can’t seem to look away from her. She’s never been closer to me than right now, and I can see that her eyeliner is slightly smudged at the corner of her eye.

Despite myself, despite the fact that I am more pissed off with her now than I was at her botching my poorly thought suicide plan, I have to tamp down on the sudden urge to lick my thumb and rub at it.

“Bella,” She murmurs softly, hand still holding my arm- and, as tight as her grip is, I can sense the strength she’s restraining. “I don’t want us to always be doing this. Saying sorry, never being sure if I’m forgiven- and I really am sorry. I shouldn’t have done it, and I shouldn’t have put Emmett up to it-“

“I’m a big boy, Rose,” Emmett pipes up from somewhere behind us; I’m not sure where, exactly, since I can’t seem to take my eyes off Rosalie’s, but his voice edges closer. “I should’ve refused to do it.”

Rosalie sighs, and the breath that escapes her parted lips sweeps over my face, somehow sweet and minty at the same time.

“I want us to be friends,” She continues, in that same low, gentle voice, and though I know that both she and Emmett don’t have any powers- not like Edward, or Alice, or Jasper-, I feel like there’s a good chance they weren’t checking for hypnotism, because I feel physically incapable of looking away from her when she gnaws at her bottom lip, plush and inviting. “I’m sorry for everything I done. Seriously. And I want to try being friends. Can we be friends, Bella? Please?”

Her voice edges on the fine line between insistent and desperate, and I have no doubt that she sincerely believes my answer will affect her in any way, shape, or form. But I know better. This has been brought on by weeks of guilt building up inside her, and now she's deluded herself into thinking she wants anything deeper, more permanent, than the forgiveness she's craving from me. I know the feeling well. 

“I’m sorry too,” Emmett’s voice whispers before I can stammer out a response, this time from directly behind me. I jump a little when I feel his hand, huge and heavy, rest on my shoulder. The two points of contact where they’re touching me- Rosalie’s hand still clutching my arm, Emmett’s palm resting lightly near the crook of my neck- feels warm as a brand, though I know, logically, they should be cold as ice by now.

“And you’re totally within your rights to never forgive me,” Emmett continues, “but- for what it’s worth, I never thought you’d be affected like this. Which is stupid of me, I know, but hey, you guys know I’m not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.”

“Emmett!” Rosalie and I chastise at the same time, her tone long-suffering, mine shocked and more than a little offended on his behalf, and the tension that’s been laying thickly in the room ever since I got my sketchbook back diffuses, at least a little. She releases my arm the exact same moment Emmett’s hand falls from my shoulder, and I confuse myself by attempting to lean into both at the same time.

From the look in Rosalie’s eyes, she seems to know it perfectly well. Shit.

“I think Esme’s waiting for me to come down,” I stammer, backing away- and accidentally into Emmett’s chest. His hands come out to steady me, but I quickly duck through the space between his outstretched arms and dart towards the door.

“Screw you guys for taking my sketchbook,” I say, as quickly as I can, “but thank you for giving it back.”

I fumble for the doorknob before either of them can say anything else, though I know, even as I walk down the corridor at breakneck speed, that the distance I put between us doesn’t matter- if I can hear my own heartbeat pulsing in my ears, there’s no doubt in my mind that they can hear the same, amplified by a few dozen decibels.

Esme, thankfully, doesn’t say anything when I emerge in the kitchen half a minute later. My eyes flutter shut as the smell of freshly baked cookies wafts my way, the air thick with the smell of sugar and melting chocolate chips as I hear her open the oven- without any gloves, I can’t help but note as I open my eyes.

“You came just in time,” she says, voice as sweet as the chocolate chip cookies she’s depositing into a large Tupperware container on the marble countertop. “It’s been a while since I baked cookies- or anything, really-, but I think these came out alright. Don’t you?”

She beckons me closer. I inch forward and peer over her shoulder at the cookies, my mouth immediately salivating at the sight. I can tell, by a single glance at them, that they’re the type of cookies you bake with your mom, putting slightly too many chocolate chips in, taking discreet licks of the spoon because you don’t want to be caught eating raw cookie dough, but you just can’t stop yourself. They’re thick and gooey, and though my appetite has been fairly stagnate since the Ice Cube Suicide Disaster, as I’ve taken to calling it in my head, my stomach emits a low, audible growl that causes a smile to spread across Esme’s face.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she says, before handing me one of the cookies still pressed to the aluminum sheet. “Try one now, tell me how you like it.”

Tentatively, I take the cookie from her, cooled rapidly by her hand, and take a bite. I can almost feel the sugar coursing through me as I swallow, hitting me so hard and sweet that I have to brace one hand against the countertop. I finish the rest of the cookie in a matter of seconds, Esme laughing delightedly at my reaction all the while.

“I’ll just have to make some more the next time you come over,” She tells me, eyes gleaming as she hands me the Tupperware container. “Keep some for your father, all right? That man could use some freshly baked goods.”

I smile, a little awkwardly, but before I can muster up a response, she narrows her eyes at me.

“Hold on,” she orders, before licking her index finger and suddenly rubbing at the corner of my mouth at whatever smeared chocolate she must find there. The gesture is so motherly, so unthinkingly made, as though it’s second nature to her, that, for the third time today, tears prickle at my eyes.

“There,” she says, grinning victoriously as she moves away, but the grin falters when she sees my expression. 

“What’s wrong, Bella?” She asks quietly, but I shake my head mutely, unable to speak- and then I surprise the both of us by wrapping my arms around her neck, clutching the Tupperware container tightly as I press my face into her shoulder. The day feels like it's physically pressing over me- Phil's reveal, Carlisle's insistence over therapy, Rosalie and Emmett's admission of theft and their subsequent begging for forgiveness-, and though Esme's touch had revulsed me before, I need it now, desperately. Anything to ground me back to Earth.

I feel her arms ghost over my back, unsure whether to touch fully, but when I press closer against her, one arm wraps firmly around my torso, the other coming up so she can gently caress the back of my head.

It’s this gesture that causes the floodgates to open. I can do nothing but hold on tight as the waterworks take me under. 


	14. Chapter 14

After mortifyingly disentangling myself from Esme, she offers, in the sweetest, softest voice I’ve ever heard in possibly my entire life, whether I’d be okay with her driving me home. It’s obvious she overheard my conversation with Rosalie and Emmett, but I can’t help but feel a little touched- even as I can barely manage to look her in the face- that she’s offering to begin with. 

So I follow her to one of the cars parked in the garage that cost more than Charlie’s mortgage, and spend the next fifteen minutes or so in uncomfortable silence that Esme tries her best to fill. I make noncommittal noises, though when she reveals she hasn’t driven a car since the eighties, I can’t help but tense a little.

She laughs, the sound ringing like bells.

“Don’t worry, Bella,” she murmurs, leaning over to give me a gentle squeeze on my shoulder. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you, I promise.”

And it’s incredibly stupid of me, but I can’t help but believe her. The skin of my shoulder feels warm where she’s touched it- not the blistering sort of warmth I felt emitting from Rosalie and Emmett’s collective touches-, but warm as though coming inside from a snowstorm, and only just now realizing how cold I’d been.

We fall into silence after that.

Once more, I clamber out of a Cullen’s car with a barely audible “goodbye,” and it’s only when she’s driven off- after I insist that she doesn’t wait for Charlie to open the door for me-, that I allow myself to take in a huge, shuddery breath that doesn’t so much calm my frayed nerves more than agonizes them further. Charlie’s expecting yet another heart-to-heart when I come in, and I barely have it in me to ask him about his day, much less inform him of his ex-wife’s infidelity that might’ve been present in his marriage as well.

Not that I’m going to tell him what Phil told me. I’d decided quite some time ago that, whatever awful revelations I discover about Mom, I was going to keep them bottled up and locked away in some dark, tiny crevice of my mind, and let it eat away at me from the inside out. I’m not about to go unburdening myself to Charlie, who as it is, is well on his way to a nervous breakdown between dealing with Mom’s death and my perpetual mood-swings and undying sullenness.

Before I can figure out how I’m going to handle the shitshow that’s inevitably going to unfurl in a few minutes, Charlie peeks his head out the door. I find my jaw dropping as he opens it fully, revealing his head-to-toe fishing gear, bucket hat and all. I haven’t seen him decked out like this since the Great Fishing Expedition of Christmas Eve 1997, as he and Billy had referred to it for years afterwards, in which they’d went out in search of the legendary blue lobster that supposedly lives in the depths of Calawah River. We all knew they wouldn’t find anything, of course, but Jacob’s sisters and I had been in hysterical raptures after they’d emerged downstairs, in matching fisherman’s regalia.

“Why-?” I begin, but stop when I see the two fishing poles he’s balancing on one shoulder. He grins at me, before tossing me something simultaneously heavy and soft. When I just barely manage to keep it from dropping onto the floor with one hand (the other still gripping the Tupperware container Esme gave me), I realize it’s another fishing hat, one that he’s clearly expecting me to put on.

“What are we doing?” I ask warily, and he smiles broadly, something I haven’t seen on his face since I came to Forks.

“You and I,” he says, closing the front door with his foot, “are going fishing.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture,” I say slowly, watching him grab the cooler beside the front door and lug it over to the bed of my truck, “but you know I suck at fishing, Dad.”

He tosses the cooler over the side with a muffled grunt, before depositing the poles right alongside it.

“Yeah, well…” He trails off as he turns to face me, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. “It’s not so much about the fishing more than it is about us having a conversation where neither of us can run for cover. I know we’ve, uh, been doing that a lot lately. Me more than you, of course, but-“

“It’s been me too,” I interrupt quickly, before I take another breath and force myself to smile at him as I put the hat on my head. I’m not particularly relishing the idea of sitting on a rowboat with Charlie as we struggle to speak about the elephant threatening to topple us into the water, but I’m aware of how bitchy it would be to refuse. And I did promise him a _tete-a-tete_ today, after all. “Okay, Dad. Let’s go fishing.”

We clamber into the car in unison, and I try to extend the noise- the shutting of the passenger’s side door, the clicking of the seatbelt locking into place, the fiddling of the radio- for as long as possible, though Charlie seems as inclined to speak right now as I am, casting me nervous glances out of the corner of his eye as he pulls out of the driveway.

“Were the Cullens nice?” He asks finally, as I wince at a pop song that I’ve been hearing nonstop for months come blasting over the radio. I laugh, feeling not only a little strangled, as I try to tamp down on the responses that immediately come crawling up my throat, one over another. There are a lot of things I can say to that, but instead of allowing myself to pour out the vitriolic curses that have been resting on my tongue the second I stepped into Carlisle’s office, I pick the safest route. I talk about Esme.

“She’s the one who gave me these cookies,” I tell him, waving the container for emphasis. “Said I needed to fatten you up some.”

Charlie barks out a surprised, delighted laugh.

“She’s always been a sweetheart, ever since I met her,” He says, voice soft and fond. “I know I probably don’t have to tell you that, but she and Doctor Cullen are upstanding members of the community. I can barely remember how we managed before they came to town, honestly. Carlisle’s patched up more of my boys than I can count.

“I know you’ve been hanging around the Cullens more often lately,” he continues, after a brief pause. I tense up, but he doesn’t seem to notice, drumming his fingers on either side of the wheel as he speaks. “And I know they’re good people, but-“

“But?” I ask, resenting how defensive I sound to my own ears.

“Just- remember you have other friends as well, that’s all,” Charlie says soothingly. “I know Jacob sure misses you. He called the house when you were at the Cullens’, wondering if you were available, but I, uh- I told him you were busy.”

Shit. Guilt lances through me as I realize it’s been almost a week since I talked to Jacob, but in my defense, I was dealing with some pretty fucked-up things. Not that I can tell either him or Charlie that, but it’s not as though I was snubbing him on purpose or anything.

“I’ll call him up when we get back home,” I decide out loud. “Maybe I can go down to La Push or something, since he’s been driving up here the last two times we hung out.”

“I’m sure he’d like that very much, Bells,” Charlie says, voice approving, before giving me a sideways glance. “He really likes you, you know.”

“Dad.”

“He does!” Charlie insists, laughing a little at my mortified tone. “He’d probably kill me for saying this, mind you, so don’t go blabbing about it to him when you see him, but- he was so excited for you to come up here, you don’t even know. ‘Course, he was upset about the circumstances, but when he heard you’d be staying in Forks with me… that boy’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.”

Abruptly, we pull to a stop as we come across a kid loitering in the middle of the street with his beat-up skateboard, saving me from having to answer. Charlie gives a little honk, to which the kid- who can’t be older than nine or ten- lifts his middle finger up in the air for all to see before abruptly taking off on his board, unwashed blonde hair flying behind him.

“That little prick,” Charlie says in a mild, marveling tone, craning his neck to watch the kid go. “We should’ve gone in the cop car, I just know it.”

I keep quiet, my face feeling hot as I struggle to keep from laughing. It’s impossible to hide how red my face has turned from Charlie, though, who ends up laughing despite himself.

“Wonder where his parents are,” Charlie murmurs, still looking after the boy. “Letting their kid run wild in the street like that. Should we maybe go back and ask if-“

“ _Dad_ ,” I say, as firmly as I can muster. “No way.”

He makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, as the car finally lulls back into motion.

“Look,” he blurts out, seemingly out of nowhere. I don’t want you to get the impression that I disapprove of you being around the Cullens or anything. Not at all. You know how much I like them. And if anyone could’ve befriended their kids, who I’ve heard from multiple accounts are pretty standoffish, it’d be you.”

I choose to be selectively silent at that, but Charlie doesn’t seem to notice, smiling to himself as we drive down the street.

“They’re just so young, you know,” Charlie says, seemingly out of nowhere. “Doctor Carlisle and his wife, I mean. Barely six or seven years older than you, and yet they’re raising all those kids on their own… they make it seem perfect, huh? Sometimes I have to remind themselves that they’re only human, that they make mistakes like the rest of us, but, uh, it’s hard to believe it. Especially when I look back at myself, and I…”

“Dad,” I mutter, my voice hushed as I speak past my rapidly tightening throat. He gives me a startled look.

“No, Bells, that’s- you don’t have to-“ He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “You don’t have to reassure me or anything. I know I haven’t been around, I know I’ve pushed you into thinking you had to leave-“

“You haven’t pu-“

“But I want you to know that, from now on, I’m going to be here,” He continues, voice growing louder and steadier as he speaks. His words sound rehearsed, as though he’s been through them a thousand times, but the way he looks at me is filled with such genuine contriteness, such pleading earnestness, I have to look away. “Whether or not it makes me uncomfortable. I know it can sometimes be- _strained_ \- between us, but I promise there’s not going to be any more running away. Not from me.”

Unable to speak past the now fully formed lump in my throat, I can only bring myself to nod before turning back to the radio, pretending to be totally engrossed in the nasally voice promising to leave her boyfriend in the dust for good this time. The music dies off as the houses outside the window eventually dwindle into abandoned lots and empty grass-fields, but before I can lean over to change the station, another song comes on, the guitar chords so familiar I’m hit with a wave of déjà vu.

And then the music begins in earnest. Beside me, Charlie huffs out a marveling laugh, and when I turn from the window to face him, his eyes are unexpectedly bright with tears as he stares down at the radio.

“This was your mother’s favorite song,” he murmurs, voice filled with wonder, and realization hits me like a freight truck as Don McLean begins to croon of gypsy moths and moonlight, just as Mom had in my dream the night before, the one where I’d woken up in a cold sweat in Emmett’s arms. “God, I haven’t heard this in years. She wanted to play it at our wedding, but I told her it was too depressing, too much of a bad omen to play a song about divorce- well, look where that got us, right?”

That last part is murmured, almost certainly not meant for my ears, but I can’t bring myself to look away from the radio to see Charlie’s expression. God, how could I have forgotten? It had also been years since I heard this song, but there’s no way in the world I could’ve forgotten how she used to put on her old records while she was baking in the kitchen when I was a kid, replaying this record in particular over and over again, until I begged her to change it to anything else- even one of her Joni Mitchell records, which was arguably a far more depressing choice than Don McLean could ever be.

When I’d begun taking guitar lessons in eighth grade, this was the one song she’d begged me to learn, but I never did, since I ended up, once more, ditching the after-school activity only a few months after I’d begun. How the hell could I have buried this for so long?

Almost unbidden, I sing along to the only snippet of the song I can remember in full. Charlie hesitates for only a second before he joins me. And though our warbling of empty rooms that echo as we climb the stairs, and empty clothes that drape and fall on empty chairs could never do Mom’s rendition justice, her voice impossibly low and rich where ours are frail and thin, I still feel a rush of unexpected pleasure as I glance over at Charlie. I haven’t sung at all since Jacob and I holed up in my truck and listened to Outkast, but instead of the guilt that pervaded me then, for singing so soon after Mom died, all I feel now is wonder and bemusement at the fact that I’ve never sung alongside Charlie before now- not even when I was a kid, and didn’t feel the same all-encompassing reservations about indulging in father-daughter pastimes as I do now.

I trail off, not knowing the rest of the song, and Charlie’s voice grows louder in my silence. When I look at him out of the corner of my eye, the tears that had been brimming in his eyes have overflooded, getting trapped in the short bristles of his newly developed beard, but when he catches me looking at him, he gives me a tentative smile. I can’t help but smile back.

* * *

Fishing, as I expected, turns out to be a total disaster.

I can barely manage to put the wriggling worm on the hook of my pole without gagging, and Charlie snaps a picture of my very unsightly grimace with the ancient Polaroid camera he’s found in the bottom of his gear bag. I reach over to rip the picture to shreds, but as I do so I accidentally knock the small metal bucket containing our bait over, resulting in a few dozen nightcrawlers landing all over the tiny rowboat Charlie’s rented for the day. 

I shriek as a few begin crawling onto my shoes and pants, my demands for an answer as to why he didn’t choose the rubber worms at the tackle shop when he had the chance superimposed by the cries of fear that are ripping from my throat unbiddenly. Charlie’s laughing at my plight all the while, but the joke’s on him; when I manage to grab a worm between my thumb and forefinger and fling it at him, the scream he emits is one of genuine fear.

That makes _me_ laugh, and it’s only when he’s finally managed to scrounge up all the worms and put them back in the bucket that I’m finally able to calm myself down. Charlie shoots me a mock-betrayed look, before telling me, in an exaggeratedly uppity voice, that I’m throwing my line way too close to the boat.

“That’s where you want to be reaching,” He says, and my gaze follows his finger out to a rocky shoreline, studded with trees just above the cliff-face. Something occurs to me, and before I can restrain myself, I blurt out, “This is where you found one of the girls, right? Clallam Bay?”

Charlie’s expression hardens, and I silently berate myself for ruining what’s probably the one wholesome father-daughter bonding moment we’ve had since he picked me up from the airport, but before I can take a deep breath and prepare for an awkward, silent half-hour of not-fishing, he speaks.

“Yes, it is,” he says, voice suddenly heavy with unspoken weariness and grief. “Not here, obviously- we didn’t find her in the lake. But somewhere near here, yeah.”

I bite my lip, trying to figure out what to say without coming off as totally insensitive- or worse, unable to muster anything than the most banal, if sincere, platitudes-, but Charlie looks so far away, whatever I say next is going to fall on deaf ears. I don’t know how it never registered before, but he looks far, far older than his mid-forties. If I didn’t know him, I’d think he was retirement age, the worry lines on his face are so pronounced.

Once more, I’m speaking before I have a chance to restrain myself.

“Maybe you could retire,” I suggest in a quiet voice, and he jerks his head upwards in surprise, rocking the boat with the forcefulness of the motion. I yelp and clutch at the sides of the boat while he mutters profuse apologies, looking startled by his own response.

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Charlie says, once we’ve stilled a little. “And I don’t particularly want to.”

“Is it about the money?” I say, figuring that, if my foot’s going to be perpetually in my mouth, at least I can get down to the heart of the issue. “Because I can start working if you need me to, Dad. I-“

“No, Bella,” Charlie interrupts, looking mortified by the very notion. “No way. You just go out and enjoy being a teenager.”

I attempt to cover my derisive snort with a cough, but I don’t think it sounds too convincing. Charlie sighs, relaxing his hold on his fishing pole as he leans backwards.

“It’s not about the money,” he begins, voice low and introspective. “I love my job- hell, I’ve been working there for almost two decades; I would hope that I’d’ve come to love my job after all that time. But that’s not the reason why I’m staying, either. There are kids dying, Bells. Kids your age. Girls who remind me of you, more than I care to admit. And I-“

He pauses to take a deep, shuddery breath.

“I can’t just leave now,” He says, looking straight at me. “Not if I can do anything to stop what’s happening. People always talk about how doing the right thing doesn’t mean doing the easiest thing, but doing what I do- staying where I am- is far, far easier than walking away.”

His eyes have always been a shade darker than mine and Mom’s, but right now, they’re darker and sadder than I’ve ever seen them before, wet, once more, with unshed tears. And what could I possibly say to that? “Yeah, Dad, that’s great and all, but those girls might’ve been killed by bloodthirsty monsters, and it would really take a lot off my shoulders if I can stop constantly worrying about whether or not I’m going to lose another parent this year”?

 _Excellent plan, Bella,_ I muse, half-hysterically, to myself. _Maybe afterwards you can regale him with the troubling developments of your sexuality in regards to maintaining unsustainable crushes on not one, but two, of those bloodthirsty monsters you’re so worried about. Oh, but don’t worry, they only drink animal blood, I’m sure that’ll make you feel better about everything!_

It's only when Charlie says my name that my eyes refocus, and I realize I’ve been staring a hole into the collar of his flannel for the past minute and a half.

“You okay?” He asks, and I force myself to smile.

“Fine,” I say, unconvincingly. “I was just thinking about the book we were reading in English class.”

It’s a lie, of course; I was actually thinking about the fact that the few hours we’ve spent on the rowboat is the longest I haven’t seen any of the Cullens in the past forty-eight hours. But I need an innocuous segue to get down into the heart of my inability to spill to Charlie exactly why that is, and this seems the most discreet way to do it.

“Which book?” Charlie asks, and my smile turns into something a little more genuine. He’s trying so hard; you can hear it in his voice, all soft and eager but not too eager, not enough to seem weird or out of place about it.

“Dracula,” I respond, watching his face. Another lie; we’re reading Beowulf, which is so utterly boring I forgot what the titular character’s name was a week into our unit. “The way those girls died… it just reminded me of it, that’s all.”

“Bella,” Charlie says, and I don’t particularly like his tone this time, matter-of-fact but still slightly coaxing. “You don’t really believe that the man responsible for all those deaths is a-“

“Of course not!” I snap, feeling slightly flustered, though that’s exactly what I believe. And what had I been expecting, really? Even if he’d shown a surprising belief in the paranormal- not exactly characteristic of a middle-aged man who’s spent most of his life living in a small town-, it wasn’t like I could tell him anything, anyway. Not if I wanted to keep the Cullens out of trouble.

Carlisle might’ve thought I was stupid, but I could put two and two together. Looking up the word “Volturi” online at the school library- again, not exactly a smart decision, but I was reasonably assured that vampires wouldn’t be avidly looking through my search history anytime soon-, yielded a latin translation of the word “vulture,” in singular form. Maybe it was a wild conjecture, but paired with the fact that the Volturi supposedly would send people after rogue vampires, I felt it was safe to assume they were some sort of vampiric militant group. Next time I was with Carlisle, I’d test my theory in person.

“All I’m saying,” I continue, turning back to Charlie, “is that the guy who’s killing those girls has some sort of… fetish. I mean, you said yourself that they were drained of blood. Maybe he’s convinced himself that he’s, y’know, a vampire.”

“Okay,” Charlie says, though he still looks a bit worried. “As long as you know that there aren’t really-“

“I _know_ , Dad,” I say, and roll my eyes for good measure. He puffs out a quiet, weary sigh, and tries to smile at me.

“It’s just that there are some boys at the station who, uh- who’s imaginations have got the better of them,” He begins, sounding more than a little embarrassed. “I mean, you’d think we were middle schoolers at our first sleepover, the way they keep on sharing horror stories, trying to scare each other…”

“About the killer?” I ask mutely, and he jerks his head into an unwilling nod.

“Yeah. About how he’s a _real_ vampire, that he’s going to hunt us one by one and suck our blood out until there’s nothing left… I told them how disrespectful that was- we have dead girls on our hands, the last thing we need is for people to catch wind of what’s being said at the station and affix their deaths to some sort of wild Dracula-man-, but that’s only made things worse. Now, they only gossip when I’m out of earshot.”

He laughs, more than a little wryly, and I try to join him, but it comes out a little strangled. He tilts his head at me, squinting slightly.

“You sure you’re okay, Bella?” He murmurs. “You look- _pale_. Paler than usual, I mean.”

It’s my turn to attempt a smile, though I’m sure it comes across as more of a grimace than anything else.

“Maybe _I’m_ secretly a vampire.”

“Oh, ha-ha,” Charlie deadpans. “Very funny. Just- you know that you can talk to me about anything, right?”

And something about the way he says it- the way he leans forward, the creases in his face more pronounced as he looks at me, his tone low and gruff and filled with paternal worry-, makes me tear up a little. I rub a hand over my face and blink rapidly a few times before I’m able to look at him.

“Sure,” I say, as breezily as I can manage, and then lean over to pluck the forgotten Polaroid camera still resting in his lap. He’s hidden the picture of me somewhere in his bag, but I’m reasonably certain I can find it and destroy it on the car ride back home.

“My turn to embarrass you,” I tell him, waggling my eyebrows at him. My ruse fails when he strikes a series of ridiculous poses, Herculean and striking against the midday sun, and I crack up so hard, I almost drop the Polaroid into the water.

“I’m keeping this one,” I tell him, once I’m able to speak without dissolving into a fit of giggles. 

“Doesn’t your phone have a built-in camera?” Charlie asks, raising his eyebrows at me as his arms come back down to his sides, and I cringe a little as I set the camera back down. This is not going to be a fun conversation to have, but I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to lie to him anymore. Not unless I absolutely had to.

“I lost it,” I say, hating myself even as the words come out of my mouth. Still, I figure that if I tell him that I threw my phone at Tyler Crowley’s car- entirely accidentally, but still-, he’s going to want to know the reason why, and then I’m going to have to tell him about Mom, and then he’s going to get seriously depressed again, and it’s going to be my fault. Call me selfish, but I don’t want to see him go through another internal mental breakdown. And _yes_ , okay, I don’t want to be forced to have another heart-to-heart when I’m trapped in a boat with nowhere to go, but it’s mostly for Charlie’s sake.

Or so I tell myself.

“I checked at the Lost-and-Found at school,” I continue, “but it wasn’t there. Someone probably stole it or something.”

Charlie frowns, proceeds to question me about where I last saw it, who I think took it, if he needed to come to the school in person and threaten to make arrests, etcetera, until my fishing line is abruptly pulled.

We exchange a wide-eyed glance.

“Reel it in!” He urges, and I hastily pull the reel, struggling against the force of what feels like the fattest fish in the whole of Washington. I cry out as it pulls so hard, I’m nearly thrown overboard, but then Charlie’s hand is covering my own, and the end of the fishing hook finally emerges.

For a brief, half-hysterical second, I’m convinced we’re going to pull up the half-decimated arm of one of the dead girls, or some equally gruesome, disturbing body part that’s been trapped in the muck and mire of the water for weeks, but all that comes out on the other end is a wriggling trout. And it’s _tiny_.

“How the hell did it feel so heavy when I was pulling it up?” I demand, feeling genuinely affronted as Charlie takes the pole from me and removes the fish from the hook. I feel mildly nauseated as I watch it writhe in his hands, glittery pale-grey in the dimming light of the setting sun, but all he does is weigh it in his palms, examining its gills and its rapidly opening-and-closing mouth for an uncomfortably long time, until I finally have to say something.

“What are you going to do with it?” I ask mutely, and Charlie looks up at me with a slightly startled expression, as though he’s forgotten I was here.

“It’s not as small as you think it is, Bells. There’s enough meat on it to make a small meal of it. We’ll do it kosher,” He says decisively. “Spike it, and then bleed it out so it can die quickly. You, uh, might want to look away.”

“I’ll watch,” I say, but I still wince when he sets the sharpened screwdriver from his gear bag against the fish’s head. And if I look away as he holds the lifeless thing down on his thigh, and sets the blade in his pocket between the fish’s gills, it’s only for a moment before I steel myself and watch as the blood drips out of its body and trickles down Charlie’s jeans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! my eighteenth birthday is coming up soon, so i'm probably not going to be able to post for a while between that and schoolwork, etc. I'm trying to get this fic and swallow the sound to have approximately the same amount of chapters by both of their endings (I'm anticipating at least another 7-10 chapters for both), but I wouldn't anticipate an ending for either for at least several months, considering how sporadic I've been in updating (entirely my fault, I know), and also because I've been trying to focus on getting some projects finished, which is rapidly taking up most of my free time. 
> 
> TL;DR, it'll be a while longer before I'm able to update iassal, let alone sts. for those of u who came to this fic bc of the latter- sorry! take this update as an apology of sorts.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES i know i'm horrible at updating so here's a thirteen page chapter to make up for it pls pray that i manage to get a consistent schedule soon
> 
> tw- drinking, inebriated kissing

Emmett’s waiting for me in my room after dinner.

I only barely manage to suppress the scream that’s forming in my throat when I see him there, sitting on my bed, flipping through my copy of _Jane Eyre_ with a bemused expression on his face. He must’ve heard us downstairs- me, gingerly poking at my portion of the fish while Charlie regaled me with tales from his and Billy’s fishing expeditions-, heard me trudging up the stairs, but he doesn’t look up from the book until I’ve set down my things at the door and sit on the bed next to him.

“This was my mom’s favorite,” He says, giving the book a little shake before tossing it gently onto my armchair. “She was the only literate one in our family, you know. She tried teaching me and my siblings some things, but it was mostly my little sister who took to the lessons. I only barely knew how to spell my name when Rosalie found me.

“’Course, she insisted on teaching me how to read,” He continues, running a hand through his curly hair. “Gave me a list of all the classics I was supposed to finish by the end of our lessons. But she must’ve overlooked that thing, and I never insisted on it. I wish I did, though. I can see why my mom liked it so much. That Mr. Rochester is something else.”

I want to open my mouth, say something meaningful, but my lips remain stubbornly sealed despite myself, and I realize, with a little jolt, that I don’t want to see him. I don’t want him to be here in my room right now, not when all I want to do is shed off my jacket and jeans and slid underneath the covers, trying to forget the weight of the fish digesting in my stomach. And I _especially_ don’t want to see him so soon after his and Rosalie’s little confession.

“What are you doing here, Emmett?” I ask, more sharply than I intended. He raises a brow at me.

“Fishing didn’t go too well, huh?” He asks, and responds before I can ask the obvious. “Alice saw you and Charlie in Clallam Bay.”

“Fishing went fine,” I snap, and lean down to pull off my boots so I don’t have to look at him anymore. I’m getting angry all over again, and I don’t want to be- not when I’d been in a semi-good mood for most of the evening, minus the whole slicing-open-fish-bellies thing. “You can tell Alice I said so.”

“I’m sorry,” Emmett blurts out, and I double down on my boots, resenting how genuine he sounds. “I know it doesn’t mean much, not after everything we did, but I-“

“That’s the thing I don’t get with you guys,” I say, as conversationally as I can muster when I’m all but folded in half, trying to pry open my tangled laces with fingers that are still frozen cold from the single-digit temperature outside. “You’ve lived for a long time, right? Surely you learned by now that saying sorry doesn’t make the bad thing you’re apologizing for go away. You did something bad, and I’m trying to process why you did it. And I get you want to make things better, but-“

My left boot comes off with a pop, and I groan in relief as cool air hits my overheated skin. I haven’t taken off my shoes since this morning. I quickly turn my attention over to my right boot, but it’s more stubborn than the left- I can feel the top of it digging circular indentations into my ankle as I attempt to yank it off.

“May I?” Emmett asks quietly, and though I _don’t_ want to accept his help, the five-pound beast attached to my foot isn’t going to yank off itself.

“Go for it,” I say, breathing hard as I straighten my back. He pulls off my boot as easily as butter going through a hot knife, dropping it unceremoniously on the ground next to its mate. He looks at me expectantly, and I know I should thank him- the words even form on the tip of my tongue and everything-, but, once more, my lips refuse to part. I don’t want to be in a position where I have to thank him- or accept his apologies, for that matter. I want him to fuck right off. And I don’t want to feel that immediate surging of guilt that I’m feeling right now, just thinking about saying it to his open, hopeful face.

“I can’t keep doing this, Emmett,” I say quietly, staring down at my hands. “It’s getting repetitive. Somebody doing something hurtful, apologizing for it, expecting me to be okay with it- it’s not okay. What you and Rosalie did wasn’t okay. I just- I shouldn’t have thanked you for returning it. I shouldn’t have thanked you for common courtesy, you know? And her asking me if we could be friends-“

I break off with an incredulous snort.

“She doesn’t want to be friends with me,” I mutter, closing my eyes. “She just feels guilty about what she did. And you do, too. And if you guys have somehow convinced yourselves that the guilt you feel in relation to me has anything to do with friendship- well, you’re wrong. We’re not friends.”

I take a deep breath and open my eyes. When I do, my bedroom is empty and a chill breeze is coming through the open window. I shiver, before crossing the room and closing the window firmly shut.

* * *

I’m not expecting Lauren to be back anytime soon, given her recent proclivity for smoking cheap cigarettes in the girl’s bathroom, but come lunchtime the next day and she’s sitting at the table like nothing happened. I brace myself for some snarky comment- perhaps on whether or not I raided Charlie’s closet for the baggiest, greyest sweatshirt I could find-, but instead, she greets me with a strange, lopsided smile. She’s brought two of her friends with her- Katie Marshall and Jennifer Ford, I think, but the two are so interchangeable, I’m not sure which is which. Both of them smell, very strongly, like weed.

“Hey, Bella!” Jessica chirps from her perch on the table beside Lauren. “Are you going to the party on Friday?”

“What party?” I ask, sliding into the open seat beside Angela, who’s nervously chewing on her lip. When I give her a worried glance, she just shakes her head a little and scoots closer to the edge of the bench- either to give me more room, or to get away from Lauren and her sycophants, I have no idea.

“A bunch of college kids up at Southwest are throwing some big Halloween costume party this weekend,” Mike informs me eagerly. “I already have my costume planned out.”

“Yeah, he and Eric bought a couple’s costume,” snickers Jennifer/Katie, and Eric and Mike immediately shout their protests.

“Link and Ganon are not a couple!” Eric hisses, and Mike nods his support. Jessica levels an impressive eye roll at them both.

“Whatever. _I’m_ dressing up as a cat.”

“That’s it?” Angela asks, finally pepping up, and Jessica scoffs disbelievingly at her lackluster reaction.

“A sexy cat, _duh_. Don’t judge me, Angela- you’re not even going in the first place.”

“Because you know I need to take my brothers out trick-or-treating!” Angela protests, before taking a deep, calming breath. “Cats aren’t sexy, Jess. They’re cats. You can’t change my mind on this.”

As they begin to passionately debate the inherent sexiness of felines, my eyes inadvertently drift to the Cullen table. I can’t tell if I’m relieved or disappointed that none of them are looking our way. I tense when I see Rosalie and Emmett, but, like the rest of them, neither are looking at me. Instead, they’re entwined in one another, pressed so close together that Rosalie’s all but sitting on Emmett’s lap, her lips moving against his ear as she whispers something that makes his lips quirk into a smile.

I resent the way my chest tightens as I watch them. I have no right to feel this way- not after I told Emmett, explicitly, that I wasn’t interested in being either his or Rosalie’s friend.

 _Well, no,_ says a traitorous little voice in the back of my head. _That’s not true. You never said you weren’t interested in being their friend- only that they weren’t interested in being yours. Not really._

I’ve never been more grateful for the fact that Edward can’t read my thoughts as I abruptly meet his curious gaze. But if he doesn’t know the inner turmoil I’m going through right now, then Jasper definitely does, shaking his head sympathetically as he wraps his arm around Edward’s shoulders to move his line of sight away from me. 

“-vampire,” says someone at the table, and I jolt back into the conversation.

“What?” I demand, sounding shrill even to my own ears. Jennifer and Katie burst into a fit of giggles, obnoxiously loud.

“I _said_ that if Jessica’s going to dress up as a sexy cat, I’m going to dress up as a sexy vampire,” Katie says, still giggling, “and Jen’s going to dress up as a sexy witch. That way, we’ll all match.”

“Vampires aren’t sexy,” I hear myself saying, my voice hard as rock. “They’re grotesque. And anemic.”

I speak loudly, but there’s no need; I know Emmett and Rosalie could hear me, even if I speak in a whisper. Good. I want them to know exactly what I think about them. Just because I don’t dare look over in their direction as I speak doesn’t mean otherwise.

Jennifer and Katie exchange a glance, before bursting into another heap of laughter, nearly doubling over one another in a fit of weed-induced hysteria. Angela gives me a thoughtful look, evidently having tired of her debate with Jessica.

“Actually,” she says slowly, “there’s some speculation that the vampire mythos is a metaphor for human sexuality, in times when sexuality was considered a taboo subject. I’m writing a paper about it for my English class. We’re doing Carmilla right now. And, I mean, if you think about it, a vampire bite can be a euphemism for a lot of things.”

“Like getting dicked down,” Jennifer says, nodding sagely. It’s a wonder I haven’t passed out by now, what with all the blood rushing to my head.

“Or giving in to your animal side,” Eric adds, with an attempt at a growl that makes me cringe so hard, I almost fall off the bench. Angela barely manages to steady me in time before I hit the ground, giving me a concerned look, but all I can do is shake my head mutely.

“Or being infected with chlamydia that your cousin’s best friend’s brother gave you at a summer kickback,” Jessica chimes in eagerly. When we all fall silent, looking at her, she crosses her arms over her chest and huffs, more than a little defensively. “Oh, like that hasn’t happened to you guys?”

“So they’re actually the _sexiest_ monsters we could’ve chosen!” Katie concludes, laughing so hard by this point that I’m genuinely afraid she might break something. “Bet you wish you chose my costume when you had the chance, Jen.”

Jennifer frowns at her, all traces of mirth disappearing from her expression.

“We can _both_ be sexy vampires, can’t we?” She asks, her voice small, crestfallen.

I only barely manage to resist the urge to cover my ears like a small child as they begin to bicker about the inherent sexiness of vampires. My only comfort is that I’m not due for another session with Carlisle until next week, though his children will have undoubtedly informed him of my semi-racist comments about their kind by that point. Oh, well. If that turns out to be the case, maybe he’ll stop insisting on therapy. His therapy, anyway.

“Just don’t be a sexy vampire,” I plead finally, unable to take any more of it. “Be a sexy Bride of Frankenstein. It’s always so hard to talk with those plastic fangs on, right? And you have to take them out whenever you want to eat or drink anything.”

Katie mulls this over, brows drawn together.

“Okay,” She finally concedes, after what feels like a lifetime, and I exhale a quiet sigh of relief. “But I’m not going as a Bride of Frankenstein- Marge Simpson hairdos are nasty. I’ll go as a sexy werewolf instead.”

“What about you, Bella?” Lauren asks abruptly, turning to me, and though I freeze under her gaze, there’s no need; there’s no coldness there, only the bloodshot eyes of a girl who’s zooted beyond words. “What are you going to be?”

Jessica pipes up before I can say anything.

“You can take my sexy angel costume!” She chirps excitedly. “From seventh grade. Your boob size is the same as mine from back then, I think. What are you again? An A-cup, right? Maybe a B?”

“C,” I correct automatically, feeling more than a little insulted, before something occurs to me. “Hold on- you have a sexy angel costume from seventh grade?”

“And matching garters,” She says, grinning proudly at her own twelve-year-old ingenuity. “You’re going to love it.”

“Love it” is a bit of an exaggeration- my idea of a good time doesn’t really revolve around getting white-girl wasted with a group of vaguely misogynistic undergrads and frat bros-, but it’s not like I have anything better planned for Halloween. This time last year, Mom and I were detailing our scary movie list, and which candies we’d pass out to the trick-or-treaters (after we had a kid nearly pass out on our porch because of a Resees Peanut Butter Cup, we struck out nut-type chocolates). It’s probably for the best that I don’t stay in the house by myself, all things considered.

“You guys should all come over to my place the night before Halloween,” Jessica continues, turning to the rest of the table, “and we can get ready together!”

I glance over at Lauren, unable to help myself. Sure, she’s high as a kite right now, but what happens when her trip ends and she realizes that she agreed to attend a college party with me, of all people? The old Lauren- or at least, sober Lauren- probably wouldn’t hesitate in pouring Draino in my Solo cup.

Angela, thankfully, notices the expression on my face, and speaks up.

“I might not be able to go,” she says quickly, “but I’ll keep you guys company while you get ready.”

“Fine,” Jessica says, shrugging loosely. “Then you can see for yourself just how sexy cats can be.”

Angela and I both wince in tandem. I mouth a “thank you” in her direction, though I still wish she could come to the party with us. As it is, I’ll barely know the people I came with; the idea of trying to mingle with drunk 20-something-year-olds makes me feel like I’m breaking out into hives. I need a buffer, and if Angela’s not coming, I’m fucked.

Unless…

“Is it okay if I bring a friend?” I blurt out. Jessica narrows her eyes at me.

“Who?”

* * *

Jacob Black has never looked more awkward than he does right now, sitting on a plush pink rug, surrounded by teenage girls trying to get their mascara just right. Though I can’t really make fun of him, honestly- I’m just as uncomfortable as he is, even with Angela attempting to keep the peace by flipping through Jessica’s MP3 player whenever there’s an awkward lull in conversation. The “sexy” angel costume Jessica lent me is so tight around my torso and chest area, it’s getting hard to breathe, and besides that, she’s insisting on doing my makeup, which is panic-inducing in and of itself-, I still can’t help but smile at the look on his face as he shoots me a panicked glance when Katie comes near, brandishing a tube of black lipstick in one hand and a eyeshadow palette in the other.

He’s dressed up as a sailor, complete with an eyepatch and a fake parrot attached to his left shoulder, but it’s the billowy white shirt which is causing both Jennifer and Katie to sneak very obvious glances at him. Katie, for her part, has kept true to her word and dressed as a “sexy werewolf,” though I’d honestly be hard-pressed to tell what she was if she didn’t tell me. She’s put on golden contact lenses and mussed up her hair like a sex-crazed ‘80s pop star, but she hasn’t worn a costume to go with the look. Or maybe the tight-fitting bodice that puts Jessica’s skintight catsuit to shame _is_ the costume?

“What’s his name again?” Jennifer murmurs, balancing her chin on Jessica’s shoulder to look over at the two of them while Jessica applies white eyeshadow to the creases of my eyes. Her witch costume consists primarily of a little pointed hat and a black-and-purple tutu she happily informed us she got in the kid’s section at Party City for half-price. While I’m not really a fan of the idea that a costume catered mostly to middle school-aged girls is low-cut enough to showcase most of Jennifer’s impressive chest, I have to admit it looks really good on her. She and Katie both clean up pretty well when their eyes aren’t bloodshot as hell from dirt weed, as it turns out. “Jack?”

“Jacob,” Angela and I correct in unison, our voices too loud- Jacob glances over, and Jennifer lets out a high-pitched squeak as she ducks for cover behind Jessica.

“He’s cute,” she says dreamily, peeking over Jessica’s shoulder to see if he’s still looking our way. Immediately, he glances away, face flushing, and that’s when Katie strikes, taking a seat beside him and grabbing his chin in one hand, moving his head left and right- to determine, I figure, where she should begin her art. Jennifer frowns as she watches this unfold, but she stays put on her perch on the bed next to Jessica and I. “How old did you say he was?”

“Sixteen,” I say, making sure to lower my voice this time.

“Don’t be a pedophile, Jen,” Lauren murmurs from behind us, where she’s attempting to do her nail polish on Jessica’s pillow covers. Out of all of us, her costume is the most low-key; she’s chosen to go as some children’s book character whose costume she stole from her little sister’s closet, and the little bunny ears and pink nose and whiskers she’s drawn on herself makes her look more fresh-faced and innocent than I’ve ever seen her look before. I’m still staring at her when she suddenly raises her head and meets my eyes, raising an eyebrow at me until it’s my turn to flush and look away.

Jessica isn’t paying her any mind; she’s too busy deciding between the pale pink lip gloss and the deep red lipstick tube she has laid out in front of us. Honestly, I’m surprised that Lauren hasn’t been more vitriolic towards me tonight- she hasn’t been warm, exactly, but she hasn’t completely ignored my existence, either, which is more than I expected when Jacob and I arrived.

“He’s practically a baby,” Lauren continues. “Besides, weren’t you _salivating_ at the thought of hooking up with all those college guys tonight?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jennifer says, though she sounds a bit disappointed. “I mean, can you really blame me, though? That hair, those shoulders… _woof_.”

“Jennifer, stop drooling after sophomores and tell me which lip color I should go with,” Jessica instructs sternly, holding up the tubes for Jennifer to see.

Immediately, Jennifer says, “The red one will look really good with her skin tone,” which is gratifying until she adds, “She’s so pale, the pink will just make her look washed-out.”

“I like the pink,” Angela offers, squeezing in beside me on the bed. She looks a little frazzled, and I feel bad- her mom was already reticent enough to let her come over in the first place, since she’s supposed to be taking her brothers out tonight; the fact that she’s sacrificed what little free time she has left before then to listen to Jennifer Ford make backhanded compliments about me is touching, in its own way. I make a mental note to do something nice for her after tonight.

“I’m going for an ether- ethaere-“

“Ethereal-“

“ _Ethereal_ look,” Jessica says, squinting her eyes in concentration as she drags the head of the red lipstick across my bottom lip. “But, like, in a sexy way. Ethere-exy. Ooh, that would make a good brand name, don’t you think?”

“Or a designer drug,” Lauren mutters under her breath.

I feel myself jolt automatically at Jessica’s touch, causing the hand holding the tube to accidentally skewer across my chin. Though she chastises me for forcing her to waste yet _another_ make-up wipe on me, I’m too busy grappling with my internal freak-out to muster up a sincere apology.

Despite my best attempts to push it down, I’m pretty sure there’s some residual weirdness about everything that occurred with Rosalie and Emmett last week floating around in my head, because it’s definitely not _Jessica Stanley_ who’s caused the bolt of arousal to shudder down my spine. I’ve been thinking about them more and more often lately- which is entirely unfair, to both myself and to them, I know, but it’s not all my fault. I haven’t spoken to Emmett since the night of the fishing trip; he hasn’t shown up, unbidden, in my room, and he doesn’t come by the bleachers in the morning anymore, either. It’s not fair of me to resent his absence, or so I keep telling myself, but it’s more than just his absence. It’s the fact that he and Rosalie have been practically joined at the hips for the past week.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating- it’s not like they’re dry-humping each other in the middle of the cafeteria. But they have been far more free in their kissing, their embraces- little, intimate touches that look far more mature than anything a high school senior can muster up- in the past week than I’d ever seen them before, which is saying quite a bit.

The only thing that makes it almost bearable is Edward’s grimaces at their PDA, and even then, I can’t entirely understand his disgust. Emmett and Rosalie are the two most beautiful people I’ve ever laid eyes on in my entire life. Sure, it’s a little infuriating that they seem to be well on their way to second base at ten in the morning every day, but it’s also been furiously fueling my spank bank material every night, too.

Not that I’d ever admit that.

Jacob looks over at me from where Katie has now switched from lipstick to blush, raising his eyebrows at the expression on my face. I can’t exactly shake my head- Jessica has planted her hands on either side of my neck to hold me steady, and her grip is vice-like and unyielding-, so I just smile at him, waggling my eyebrows as I purposefully move my gaze from his face to Katie’s. His face immediately scrunches up in disgust, before Katie demands he turn towards her so she can do his eyeliner next.

Jennifer watches with an openly worried expression on her face.

“You don’t think Katie’s going to try anything, will she?” She asks us, gnawing at her bottom lip. I can hear the smirk in Lauren’s voice without even looking at her as she replies.

“Oh, Katie’s totally going to pull the moves on Jacob,” She says, blowing slightly on her newly bloodred nails. “You better watch them like a hawk for the rest of the night to be on the safe side, Jen.”

“How’d you say you met him, Bella?” Angela asks curiously, just as Jessica tilts my head up so she can douse me in blush. I have to cough up the powder that gets into my open mouth so I can respond.

“Family friends,” I rasp, grasping my throat with one hand. “Well, more like he’s the little brother of old family friends. We only reconnected this year; I haven’t seen him since I was twelve.”

“Really?” Jessica asks, voice dripping with doubt. “Huh.”

Something in her voice gives me pause.

“What?” I ask warily, unsure if I want to know the answer.

“He just really seems to like you, that’s all,” She says slyly, dropping her voice low. I sputter, but before I can point out the heteronormativity of her inability to think two people of different genders can’t be the most platonic of friends, I spot Jacob looking at me from the rug, coloring when he sees I caught his gaze.

Huh. Maybe she’s not entirely wrong.

“Please,” I mutter, once I find my voice, though it sounds unsure even to my own ears. “He’s like a little brother to me.”

“Like a stepbrother, maybe,” Jessica snickers, but just as I’m preparing to jab her in the ribs, she leans back and snaps the blush powder shut. “Done! Go look in the mirror and admire my handiwork.”

Jennifer looks away from Katie and Jacob to gape at me slightly.

“You look bitchin’,” she says, with a low whistle.

Biting back a cutting reply, I get up from the bed and head over to Jessica’s full-length closet mirror. I don’t know what I’m expecting- or, rather, I know exactly what I’m expecting. I’m expecting for the too-tight angel costume from 7th grade to look absurd on me, the white eyeshadow and red blush to look monstrously garish, the lacy garter and stockings to look like I’m a fetishized Japanese schoolgirl in some middle-aged white guy’s hentai.

And yet.

My jaw drops open a little as I stare at my reflection in the mirror. Jessica made me- for lack of a better word- _bitchin’._ The angel costume is still constrictively tight, but now that I see the effect it’s had on my chest, I see why Jessica was so eager to get me squeezed into it. The tiny gap of flesh between the frills of the costume and the lacy stockings and garter looks almost obscene, and I understand, with a jolt, the reason why even the tiniest sliver of a lady’s ankle could send a grown man into ecstasy. The wings are laughably tiny, but then I suppose the point of the costume isn’t to invoke the fear of God in people. The one negative is that lace of the gossamer sleeves are already beginning to itch, but it’s a small price to pay to be able to cover my arms and still somehow look provocative all the while.

And my face- my _face!_ How Jessica managed to transform my face, boring and lifeless and entirely nondescript, into something palatable, I just can’t understand. The red lipstick and deep blush was a good choice; it makes the white eyeshadow look ethereal in juxtaposition. With an expired tube of lipstick and a brush-set that hasn't been touched since the late '90s, Jessica has turned me into a virtuous sin incarnate.

Shit. Maybe Carlisle’s getting to me more than I thought.

“Jess, you should seriously consider being a cosmetologist,” I say, turning back to her. She beams proudly, but my gaze is instantly arrested by Lauren’s, who only now has looked up from her nails. She looks like she’s been slapped.

“And you thought she had a B cup!” Katie cries cheerfully from her seat on the rug next to Jacob, who is endearingly refusing to lower his gaze past my collarbone. 

“Well, our tits match now,” says Jessica, hands framing her ample chest admiringly as she comes to stand beside me in front the mirror. As she makes kissy-faces at her reflection, I cautiously look at Lauren in the mirror. She’s not one to flush, but her face has taken on a pinkish tint that only exacerbates the cutesy, bunny-pink blush and makeup she’s put on herself. The warm, tight feeling in my stomach comes back with a vengeance, and I have to remind myself that, up until a few days ago, Lauren quite literally wanted me dead.

“Where’s Mike and Eric, anyway?” I ask, a little too loudly, as I turn back to Jessica. She snorts derisively.

“They wanted to get ready at Eric’s,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m pretty sure his mom would have, like, a hernia, if she thought he was going to be in a room with half-dressed teenage girls. God, she’s a prude.”

“Your dad didn’t have any problem with that, though, did he?” Katie purrs from behind us, sliding closer to Jacob. He tenses as she runs one manicured hand down his arm, giving me a panicked look in the mirror.

“We should get going,” I say quickly. “Southwest’s in Port Angeles, right? There’s always traffic around this hour.”

“We’ll be fashionably late,” Jessica declares, but gets to her feet even as she speaks. She grabs her handbag off her bed and checks the mirror one last time before nodding decisively at her reflection. “Okay. Someone remember to bring extra deodorant, because I have zero room in my purse.”

We wave Angela off in her car, and then we’re clambering into the back of Jessica’s mom’s minivan. I make sure to sit beside Jacob so that he’s on the right window seat and Katie’s on my left, but that still doesn’t stop her from leaning over to occasionally grope at his forearm or drag her fingers through his exposed chest hair. It gets so bad that I have to grab her wrist and tell her, as earnestly as I can muster, “Jake’s dad doesn’t let him date yet.”

Jacob looks at me like he can’t tell whether he wants to thank me or kill me, but I ignore his expression and focus entirely on Katie, who looks crestfallen.

“But he’s already sixteen,” she says, a whining lilt in her voice. That’s when Lauren pipes up from the front seat.

“Katie- and Jen, you better listen to this, too-, Jacob isn’t interested in either of you,” She says bluntly, her voice entirely disinterested as she looks out the window. “So you guys better shut the fuck up now, because it’s going to be really, _really_ irritating to have to listen to you guys bitch about not getting railed by a sophomore tonight.”

I can’t help it- I laugh, the sound coming through my nose like it’s been punched out of me. Jacob and I exchange a wide-eyed glance as Katie falls into an irritated silence, the dark waves almost emanating off both her and Jennifer for the rest of the car ride over. When we finally pull into the driveway of a two-story Queen Anne, buzzing with noise and activity, Katie and Jennifer are the first ones out of the car.

I glance over at Lauren, sure that this marks the end of her posse, but she just snorts derisively as we watch them head inside, greeted by two towheaded frat boys juggling red Solo cups in either hand.

“They’ll get over it,” she says airily. Jessica double-checks her reflection one last time before we clamber out of the car. The statistics Mr. Davis pulled up in US History yesterday morning- about how there were more methamphetamine overdoses this year than any other in the past two decades- keep on flashing behind my eyes in bright neon letters, especially when Jessica almost trips over a syringe in the front lawn.

“It’s _fine,_ ” she drawls impatiently, when she sees the look on my face. “Can we go inside, or are you going to have a spaz attack before we can even get off the lawn?”

I bite the inside of my cheek to avoid saying something I’m going to regret later (Jessica’s my ride back home, after all), and follow her inside before I have a spaz attack on the lawn. The place is jam-packed with college kids, lounging on the beanbags with ominous white stains scattered around the living room and doing honest-to-God shots off a dark-haired girl’s navel on the coffee table. A cluster of people are gathered around the keg in the corner of the room, chanting _chug-chug-chug_ at a skinny boy wearing the Ghost mask from Scream; closer to the living room is where they’ve set up snacks and drinks, which have been commandeered pretty much entirely by frat boys dressed in open Hawaiian shirts and scuba diving goggles.

“You’re drooling,” Lauren tells Jessica, whose eyes are glued in the direction of said frat boys. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

“We have to find Mike and Eric first,” Jessica says, but she doesn’t sound too happy about it. With what seems to be Herculean effort, she tears her gaze away from the boys to check her phone. “Uh… okay, they’re on their way, but there’s traffic-“

“Which means you have plenty of time to flirt all you want before Mike gets here,” Lauren says lightly. Jessica immediately glances over at me- if Lauren ever wanted to undermine her chances with Mike, now would be the time-, but I just shrug awkwardly. One of the frat boys is looking directly at me, gaze flickering down to my chest before meeting my eyes. I hide a little behind Jacob, suddenly wishing I’d had enough sense to bring a shrug- being slobbered over by a frat boy wasn’t really high on my list of expectations tonight.

Jacob, bless him, picks up on my discomfort immediately.

“Okay!” He says, a little too loudly. “While you guys go and do whatever it is you’re going to do, Bella and I are gonna get drinks.”

Before either of them can say anything in response, Jacob wraps his arm around my shoulders and steers me away from the living room, over to the kitchen on the opposite side of the floor. I heave a sigh of relief, slumping against his shoulder.

“Thanks,” I say, reaching up to muss up his hair, and he grins bashfully.

“You saved me from Katie and Jennifer,” He points out, ducking his head to avoid my hand. “Now we’re even.”

“Please,” I say dismissively. “Your discomfort was palpable. And besides, aren’t I supposed to be your big older sister for the night?”

Jacob laughs at that, bright and loud enough to attract the attention of a nearby cluster of girls posted at the fridge. Their eyes brighten when they see Jacob, immediately dissolving into ducked heads and whispers.

“You’re a little too young to be Rachel _or_ Rebecca,” He points out, entirely oblivious to the girls very pointedly staring in his direction. One of them- the bravest of them, I suppose- finally gets tired of waiting for him to notice and walks over, a bright smile plastered over her ruby-red lips. She’s dressed like Marilyn Monroe, complete with a blonde wig and low-cut white dress, and Jacob’s eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets when he notices her at his side.

“Hi!” She says confidently. “I just wanted to come over and say I really like your parrot. Does he have a name?”

Jacob’s mouth opens and closes wordlessly, before glancing over at me in barely concealed panic.

“Billy,” I supply quickly, smiling at the girl. “He named him after his dad.”

Jacob gives me a dirty look, but Marilyn Monroe is immediately charmed. Her smile widens as she looks up at him, and I can’t help but notice her friends in the background, staring at her turned back with unconcealed envy.

“That’s so cute,” Marilyn Monroe coos, completely unaware of her friends plotting her imminent murder behind her. “Do you go to Southwest? I’m a second-year, but I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

Again, Jacob doesn’t respond, only looks over at me with a helpless look on his face.

“He’s a sophomore, too,” I tell her, trying very hard not to smile at what I’m about to say next. “In high school.”

Her expression immediately dissolves into horror.

“Oh my god,” she says. “I am so, so sorry. I thought you were, like, _way_ older than me. It’s the eyepatch, I think. Gives you an air of sophistication.”

Jacob stares at her blankly, but I laugh out loud. The girl smiles brightly, pleased by my reaction, before her expression shifts into something a little more… analytical?

“And you?” She asks, tilting her head. Beside Jacob, she looks tiny, but I realize, with a sudden jolt, that she’s at least two inches taller than me- and not just because of her pumps. “Are you a sophomore in high school as well?”

I feel my face start to flush at her attention.

“Senior, actually,” I say, in my most challenging voice. Her voice drops down into a purr.

“That so?” She asks, raising one perfectly tweezed eyebrow at me. “The parrot kind of stole the room, but I gotta say, I am absolutely digging your whole look. That lip color is _gorgeous_ , and those wings are so. Cute. Can I touch them?”

I can’t tell who’s more flustered by the sudden shift in attention, me or Jacob. Before either of us can say anything, I feel a pair of arms suddenly wrap around me from behind. When I turn around, Jessica’s right behind me, giggling at the expression on my face, followed by Mike and Eric. True to their word, they’ve dressed up as Link and Ganon, complete with a terrible wig and a flowing red cape respectively.

I nearly groan with dismay at their presence, but Marilyn Monroe doesn’t seem taken aback; if anything, she’s smiling even wider than before.

“Oh my god,” She says. “You guys are adorable. You guys all wanna join me and my friends outside?”

Mike and Eric immediately perk up at the prospect of a pretty girl complimenting them, but before they can talk to her any further, Lauren comes over our way. She’s rounded up Katie and Jennifer, and all three juggle at least fifteen bottles of beer between them, holding two in their hands and two pretty ingeniously stuffed between Katie’s cleavage.

“Drinks?” Lauren asks slyly, prompting cheers of delight from Mike and Eric. Jacob, who’s apparently a closet nerd, immediately begins asking them where they got the materials for their homemade cosplays as we follow Marilyn Monroe over outside, shadowed by her group of friends, who she surreptitiously murmurs Jacob’s age to as we walk past the patio. They seem to cool down after that, and a few even compliment me on my costume- which prompts Jessica very loudly informing them that it was her Halloween costume in eighth grade.

Marilyn Monroe catches the expression on my face and rolls her eyes when Jessica’s not looking, causing me to bite my cheek to avoid laughing out loud. I can’t blame Mike and Eric for acting like puppies around her- she’s incredibly pretty, and when I sit down beside her as we settle on the lounge chairs circling the pool, she smells like vanilla perfume and fresh lavender.

Lauren gives me a strange look from the lounge chair nearby, and I blush with mortification when I realize she saw me _sniffing_ Marilyn Monroe like a total weirdo (which is not a sentence I ever thought I’d be able to say). I inch away so that we’re not sitting so close, but Marilyn Monroe doesn’t seem to pick up on my discomfort. Instead, she keeps on running her fingers over my wings, and though I obviously can’t feel it, the motion of her arm brushing against my bare back sends shivers lancing up my spine.

I make an effort to concentrate as she and her friends talk. Her name isn’t Marilyn Monroe, obviously, but Carsyn- “spelled with a y, because my mom was high off her ass on Epidural when they asked her what my name was.” She and her friends all in the same sorority, which causes Jessica to burst into excited questions about sorority life until one of them informs her there’s such a bad drug issue at Southwest, they lost two sisters in a timespan of four months. That shuts Jessica up pretty quickly afterwards.

“What about you?” Carsyn asks, turning to me. “You like your high school?”

“Hell no,” Jennifer butts in. She’s already tipsy off the one beer she had; her face is flushed, and she keeps on leaning over Eric’s lap to talk, causing him to shift his legs frantically every so often. “There’s maybe like, two hot guys there. Three at most.”

Jessica raises her eyebrows incredulously.

“You’re not counting the Cullens,” she says flatly.

“The _Cullens_?” Carsyn echoes. “Who’re they?”

“Unfriendly hot kids who go to our school,” Katie supplies helpfully. “Bella’s friends with one of them.”

Jacob shifts uncomfortably beside me, and I carefully avoid looking at him. Since I had that freak-out in front of him over a week ago, the one that culminated in us watching _Eternal Sunshine_ and very deliberately not speaking about the fact that I accused them of being vampires, we hadn’t mentioned them once, and I’d rather it be kept that way. I don’t know how well I can lie to Jacob about what happened, and I can’t guarantee that I can keep my mouth shut if he asks me, either.

“I wouldn’t say I’m friends with any of them,” I mutter, but Lauren scoffs at that.

“Please,” she says, brushing her long hair out of her face as she speaks. “It’s so obvious that Emmett Cullen’s in love with you.”

“Isn’t he dating his sister?” Jennifer asks, saving me from having to respond. 

“ _Foster_ sister,” Katie corrects, and Jennifer nods sagely, like even if that were true, it’d make it any better.

“Do they need CPS called on them or something?” Carsyn asks, in all seriousness, and I burst out laughing- a little too hard. My laughter dies off when I see Carsyn smiling at me, her eyes gone all sweetly squinty, and I realize, with a jolt, that I am very, very much into her. The realization forces me to grab the beer still lodged in between Katie’s cleavage and start chugging, if only to distract myself from the fact that Carsyn is still stroking the tips of my wings.

One of her friends whistles lowly as they watch.

“You can hold your liquor better than I could at your age,” she says, and Carsyn snorts.

“We’re only a year older, Val,” she points out, but her voice goes all soft and full of intent, and I’m barely able to stop myself from choking on the beer. There’s an awkward moment, before Val suggests we all go back inside to do Jell-O shots. As we begin to head back inside the house, though, I feel a slender hand wrap around my wrist.

“Hi,” Carsyn murmurs, and I smile back shyly.

“Hi,” I say, matching her tone, and she grins.

“Why don’t I go grab us the Jell-O shots,” she says, still keeping her hand on my wrist, “and you go find us an empty room we can talk in? I’d like to get to know you better, but, uh, I think Link and Ganon are trying to steal the show.”

I laugh breathlessly, lost in her bright blue eyes, the ruby-red lips parted to reveal two rows of blinding teeth.

“Sure,” I agree without thinking, and don’t even have the sense of self to feel embarrassed when I realize she can feel my heartbeat pick up from where her fingers are locked around my pulse. Her eyes go all squinty again, making me breathless, before she releases my wrist and follows the others inside the house. It takes a minute before I’m able to gather myself up and walk back inside.

The first bedroom I walk into is occupied by a couple who don’t even notice I’m standing in the threshold of the room, watching with poorly disguised horror as they proceed to tear a hole in the mattress. Thankfully, the next room isn’t occupied, but as I sit on the beige sheets, I immediately wish I had more to drink than Jennifer’s cleavage-beer.

If what I think is about to happen is actually going to happen, I need all the liquid courage I can get. And I still don’t entirely believe that what’s about to happen is going to happen. I mean, I’m not stupid- I’ve seen these types of movies before, and when a pretty girl dressed as Marilyn Monroe tells you to find a bedroom to “get to know each other in,” I don’t think she intends for us to have an intimate heart-to-heart about our respective coming-of-ages.

Still, I’m nervous. My legs keep jiggling, and I have to check my reflection in the vanity twice, just to make sure that I still look good. And despite my makeup having been somewhat smudged in the past hour, I still look better tonight than I have in the past year. Or the past lifetime.

I’m still staring at my reflection when the door opens behind me, and I immediately flop down on the bed. I shouldn’t have worried about liquor courage; Carsyn’s holding a bona-fide tray of little plastic cartons, containing a diverse array of orange and green and red Jell-O shots. There has to be at least twenty on the tray, and when I give her a questioning look, she grins.

“I might’ve liberated the last tray of shots from the kitchen,” she says, and I raise my eyebrows at her wording.

“Liberated?” I repeat, as she sets the tray down on the vanity. She looks over her shoulder to give me an innocent look.

“Stolen just doesn’t have the same kick to it, I think,” she tells me, but before I can respond, her hand is on the back of my neck and she’s holding a shot up to my lips. “Drink.”

I drink. And though it tastes like straight-up vodka- and not very good vodka, either-, I drink the next one she gives me, and the next. She matches me shot-for-shot, though she insists on feeding me the shots every time. I don’t really mind; by the time we reach our fifteenth, she’s settled fully on my lap, discarded plastic cartons littering the sheets all around us.

“I thought you said you wanted to talk,” I murmur, hands settling on either side of her waist, and she laughs, low and throaty.

“You believed me?” She asks, slinging her arms around my neck. “I must be a better actress than I thought.”

And then she kisses me.

I’ve never kissed anyone before, and though I’m immediately worried that I’m doing it wrong- and seriously, it shouldn’t be this hard to screw up slotting your mouth against another person’s-, she doesn’t seem to mind, sighing when I tentatively lick her bottom lip. I can’t tell if it's the Jell-O shots or her perfume, which seems to engulf me, but my head is swimming as she bends her head to bite at my neck.

I gasp, arching my neck, and she takes it as an invitation to nip lower, closer to my collarbone. My hands tighten on her waist, hard enough to hurt, but she just laughs and presses herself closer, her canines digging lightly into the column of my throat. Everywhere her lips and teeth touch feels like an electric shock, and I am suddenly very, very much aware of the warmth growing in my gut as she moves her lips back up to mine. If my head was swimming before, it’s drowning now.

“You’re so hot, Bella,” she whispers, her lips grazing mine with every syllable. “I saw you the second you walked into the kitchen. I was just using your friend as an excuse to talk to you.”

“Really?” I ask, nearly panting as she nuzzles the underside of my jaw. My eyes flutter shut as she bites down, catching the delicate skin between her teeth. I never realized that I was into biting, but I probably should’ve figured that when I realized I was into two known vamp-

Nope. Not finishing that sentence. Not when there’s a hot, college-aged girl straddling my thighs and telling me how pretty I am.

“And maybe to make you a little jealous,” Carsyn admits, her breath hitting my skin in warm puffs. Her wig has been knocked askew, revealing sandy-blonde hair a few shades darker than Marilyn's shade of blonde, but before I can move my hands to remove the hairpins from her scalp, she suddenly clambers off my lap. I open my mouth in protest, but my words die off when she starts to loosen the laces at the front of the costume- the ones that are the last barrier between my tits and the open air of the bedroom. Jessica insisted I shouldn’t wear a bra with this costume, and I can’t tell if I want to thank her or curse her for it.

As it is, I don’t get the chance to do either. Because, just as Carsyn starts to undo the final laces, bile begins to rise in my throat. Before I can move away, warn her what’s about to happen, I’m suddenly bending over and vomiting all over her nice black pumps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the closest i'll ever get to writing smut y'all i'm still hiding under my blankets in shame from the world


	16. Chapter 16

We stare at each other in horror.

Before she can say anything, I get to my feet and stumble to the door, holding the laces of my costume with one hand as I fumble for the doorknob with the other. I can hear Carsyn calling out after me, but I ignore her as I head straight for the bathroom, starting to cry before I even manage to slam the bathroom door behind me.

“You fucking loser,” I whisper as I stare at my reflection, hands clutching the sink so tightly, my knuckles turn white. I don’t know how I ever could’ve thought I looked pretty. I look like a fucking mess. My lips are all red and swollen, the lipstick smeared across straight across my mouth, and my neck is littered with hickeys ranging in intensity and size. And the mascara that Jessica had so painstakingly applied no leaks down my cheeks in shaky black rivets. “You fucking _loser.”_

“You’re not a loser, B’la,” slurs a voice from the tub, and I almost jump out of my skin. When I turn around, I see Jennifer lying there, her witch hat askew on her head as she reclines just below the faucet. “Trus’ me, I know one when I see one.”

I hurriedly wipe my eyes with the front of my wrist.

“You okay, Jennifer?” I mutter, and she giggles wildly in response.

“I have to tell you something,” she manages to say, calming herself down a little. “Come here.”

Numbly, I kneel down next to the tub. Her lips tickle my ear as she leans in close, and I wince, remembering how nice Carsyn’s lips felt there. How nice it all would’ve been if I hadn’t fucked it up immeasurably. My eyes prickle with fresh tears, but Jennifer raises an unsteady hand to my shoulder before I can turn back around.

“I saw Mike and Eric hooking up in the room next door,” She whispers dramatically, before she sets herself off again, shrieking with laughter at the very thought. I straighten back up and head to the sink, feeling like I’m about to throw up all over again as I force myself to gargle the tap water, trying, unsuccessfully, to get the taste of bile out of my mouth. _I’ve got to get out of here,_ repeats over and over in my head like a mantra. I am _not_ about to stick around when Carsyn finally heads out of the bedroom to try and salvage her heels.

Jennifer’s still giggling when I close the door behind me, stumbling towards the living room to try and find Jacob, or Jessica, or hell, even Lauren- anyone who’d be willing to drive me home. Or slam us both into a tree with their car, either/or.

But all around me is a sea of unfamiliar faces. Leering faces, too- my laces aren’t closed properly, and I have to keep one hand clutched at my chest to make sure I don’t expose myself to a few dozen drunken frat bros. I try to ask if anyone’s seen a boy in a pirate costume or a sexy cat, but I don’t think I sound very coherent; the group of girls I ask stares at me for a moment, before bursting into high-pitched laughter that rings in my head like someone took a mallet to it.

I groan, placing one hand against the wall as I attempt to gather myself. I’ve never felt shittier in my life- not even after my suicide attempt. The thought makes me strangely giddy, and I feel my shoulders shake as I bend over. For a moment, I’m afraid I’m about to puke again, but no- I’m just laughing, harder than I’ve ever laughed in my life. It feels worse than the puking did, like my insides are jostling with every sharp intake of breath.

Someone tries to talk to me above the noise, but I don’t- _can’t_ \- stop, not until I feel two cool, very familiar hands wrap around my shoulders. I stop laughing, but I don’t look up. I don’t have to. I know who those hands belong to.

“Bella?” the voice belonging to the hands asks, voice low and urgent. “Bella, c’mon. Look at me.”

“Hey, man,” says a voice somewhere in the background. “You two aren’t supposed to be in here without costu-“

“I’ll rip your heart out through your throat,” another voice informs him coolly, low and feminine. The second voice sputters but goes away, and then I feel another presence beside me, a shoulder made of marble pressing against mine.

“Is she okay?” demands the owner of the marble shoulder, and I can feel the first voice shrug helplessly.

“She won’t look at me,” he says. The third voice sighs exasperatedly, and then two cool fingers are wrenching my face up to the light. Rosalie Hale and Emmett Cullen are inexplicably standing in front of me, staring at me with twin expressions of horror on their faces. And yet it doesn’t detract from their beauty, from the fact that they’re the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And I’m so- so-

“Is that Edward?” I slur, momentarily distracted by the presence of yet _another_ Cullen in the house. He gives me a smile when he hears my voice but presses on, eyebrows knitting together as he walks past my shoulder. I crane my neck to watch him go before he’s out of sight entirely.

“If you guys wanted to be invited to the party, you could’ve just asked,” I mumble, turning back to Rosalie and Emmett. Their eyes are glued on my throat.

“Are those-“ Rosalie begins, looking nauseated, but Emmett shakes his head before she can finish her sentence.

“If it were,” He says, voice low and grave, “she’d be convulsing with pain by now.”

They stare at me for another beat, and I stare back in unseeing confusion, growing more and more upset with every second that passes. I don’t want to see them- either of them. Especially not now, not after what’s arguably the most humiliating moment of my life.

“C’mon, Bella,” Emmett sighs. “Up you go.”

And before I can move, or act, or speak, an arm is snaking above my knees, another below the wings that have somehow managed to stay on despite the past hour and a half. The muscle memory of being lifted by Emmett Cullen- albeit in a far different circumstance- causes me to beat my fists weakly at his chest, but it’s as ineffectual as a fly slamming against a brick wall.

“Shh, Bella,” Emmett murmurs, in what I suppose he thinks is a soothing voice. “We’re taking you back to our house. We need to get you out of here.”

But just as he turns around, heading for the door, I see Jacob in the living room, face lighting up with recognition as he begins to walk over- and then immediately darkening with concern.

“Bella?” He asks, eyes huge as he comes to my side. “What- what happened to you?”

“She’s drunk,” Rosalie informs him, before her nose suddenly wrinkles. “You smell _awful.”_

“Thanks,” Jacob says dryly, and despite the fact that I am this close to having a mental breakdown, I can’t help but giggle at his deadpan delivery. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Friends,” Emmett says, voice flat. “We’re taking her back to our place to crash. She’s going to have a nasty hangover tomorrow morning.”

“Wha- no way!” Jacob cries in disbelief, and I wince at the high pitch of his voice. “You two could be serial killers for all I know!”

“They’re worse,” I mumble, and feel entirely vindicated when Emmett winces against me.

“Oh, G- we don’t have time for this,” Rosalie snaps, stepping so close to Jacob, she’s a hairsbreadth away from knocking her forehead against his. And despite the fact that Jacob is a healthy six feet and has at least four-and-a-half inches on her, she seems to tower over him, glaring balefully into his face. “Bella’s coming with us. Our father’s a doctor.”

“Your f- holy shit.” Jacob blanches as he stares at her. “You’re the Cullens, aren’t you?”

“Enough, Rose,” Emmett says quietly. “We’re leaving.”

“Like hell you-“

Quick as a flash, Rosalie grabs his parrot off his shoulder and hurls it across the room, where the momentum causes it to break clean through the window like a bullet. Glass shatters everywhere, and as Jacob turns to gape along with everyone else, Emmett’s body is thrown into motion.

The world passes by in a blur, nearly splitting my head open even as I screw my eyes tightly shut. When Emmett finally stops, I’m unable to keep myself from puking up the rest of the Jell-O shots, the vomit forcing its way past my throat and up my nose, white-hot and terrible, and I start to cry from the sheer pain of it all. I try to wrench myself away from Emmett, pushing my hands as hard as I can against his chest, and though I know that the Jell-O shots haven’t induced superhuman strength in me that can rival that of a vampire’s, he puts me on the ground anyway.

I immediately start to crawl away, fingers digging into the grass of their front lawn as I put as much distance as possible between me and the house. As I focus intently on making my way out through the dark thicket of trees and out onto the pavement I know lies just ahead, I can vaguely hear the front door of the house open behind me.

“Did you find out who it was?” Alice’s voice questions, her tone uncharacteristically agitated. I force myself to crawl faster, but none of them seem interested in me- which is a good thing, I remind myself.

“We didn’t stick around to put her in more danger,” Rosalie snaps. I’m encouraged by how faint her voice sounds by now- if I just make my way past this stretch of land, I might be out on the road sooner than I think. “You _told_ us not to wait around, Alice. You said-“

“I know what I said,” Alice says through gritted teeth.

“Calm down, both of you,” Carlisle commands quietly. “We won’t find out anything more until Edward comes back, or Bella comes to.”

“Think that’s gonna be a while from now, Pops,” Emmett cracks, and though I feel irritation lance up my spine, I don’t look away from my fingers digging into the grass and dirt. “Don’t light matches around her anytime soon.”

Carlisle sighs loudly, and I can almost see his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. He says something too low to hear, and, emboldened by the lack of noise, I can’t help but glance over my shoulder.

I made it six feet away.

With a low moan, I collapse onto the grass, rolling onto my back so that I’m facing the sky. I can only hope that Carlisle- dear, sweet Carlisle- will take pity and sic his children upon me like a pack of starving wolves so that I can forget the events of tonight forever, despite knowing that he’d be just as lucky to break out into a Kesha song, complete with choreography and flashy tank tops and all. The thought makes me burst out laughing, and I suddenly have more sympathy for Jennifer- the idea of Link and Ganon hooking up _is_ pretty funny, now that I think about it.

“Jasper, will you help me?” Carlisle’s voice asks, and though I know I should probably be tensing up at whatever “help” Jasper can give me, I’m still laughing, tearing up for an entirely new reason now as my insides quake. It’s just as well; a second later, and a soothing calm floods through me, sobering me up quicker than a splash of cold water across my face. I still feel the warmth of the alcohol in my system- I doubt that even Jasper, powerful as he is, could entirely erase the potent effects of Jell-O shots concocted by frat bros intent on getting as drunk as they can in as little time as possible-, but the giddiness has been replaced almost entirely by artificial serenity.

Esme’s face appears upside-down above mine.

“Hello, Bella,” she says, attempting a smile, and my hand immediately moves to my chest, squeezing the laces between my fingers. Out of the entire Cullen family, Esme’s the one I want to flash the least, I think.

“Hi, Esme,” I say, and her smile grows warmer. With her head haloed by the moon, she looks like an angel- a real one, not the shitty, shitty one I’ve turned out to be.

“Would you like some help getting up?” She asks, holding out a hand. I hesitate before taking it, and then she’s pulling me back up to my feet, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulders. Once more, I’m surrounded- very reluctantly, and through no fault of my own- by the Cullens, but it’s Alice who takes up the whole of my attention.

She looks _wrecked._ Her hair- ordinarily spiky and untidy- is in disarray, and her eyes look sunken where they bore a hole into my face. In two steps she’s hugging me, inadvertently squeezing Esme’s arm against my wings, and it’s only when I cry out in pain that she finally lets go.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispers, her eyes taking up half her face. “I swear to God, Bella, I didn’t think I’d see you again on Monday.”

“Wha’? Why?” I should probably feel more agitated at her words than I do, but Jasper, standing with his arms crossed over his chest a few feet away, is doing his damnest to make sure I don’t feel anything other than that same soothing calm.

Alice takes a breath.

“There was someone at the party,” she says, running a shaky hand through her hair. “Someone I couldn’t see. Someone who was intent on doing something horrible to you- I could _feel_ it, I _knew_ it, but they kept their face hidden from me. It was like a- a shroud across my visions. We thought it might’ve- that it might’ve been the same person who’s been killing girls near Forks. The ones who look like you.”

I stare at her uncomprehendingly, before I belatedly realize she’s waiting for me to respond.

“The only person I met was _Carsyn_ ,” I tell her, the syllables unwittingly going into a sing-song, and I can almost feel the calm that Jasper’s forced upon me start to crack as I remember the expression on Carsyn’s face after I threw up on her. The memory of the embarrassment is almost as potent as feeling it in the present.

“Carsyn?” Alice’s nose scrunches up, before her eyes suddenly flit to my neck. “Did she-“

“Yeah.” I wish Esme’s arm wasn’t around me for this part of my interrogation.

“I didn’t even ask my question.”

“I knew what you were about to say.”

“She was going to ask if Carsyn seemed to intend you any harm,” Edward murmurs from where he’s suddenly appeared beside Jasper, arms rigid at his sides. His presence was inexplicable; I knew I saw him back at the house, but nobody bothers to explain why he was there to begin with.

He looks as uncomfortable as I want to feel.

“Depends on what you consider harm,” I say, grinning despite myself, but it falters when I see the expression on his face.

“No. She was just some girl.” _Some pretty and sweet girl who thought I was pretty and sweet until I puked all over her and ruined my first kiss for the rest of my life,_ I wisely choose not to add. Besides, if I have to explain how she was the one new person I’d met at the party and how my neck simultaneously looks like it was used as a teething ring, then it’s not even worth mentioning.

Alice just shakes her head.

“There was _someone_ at that party who wanted to hurt you, Bella- and they were powerful enough to block themselves from me,” she says insistently, jaw tightening in determination, before she turns to Edward. “You’re sure you didn’t hear anyone, Edward?”

“So you _were_ there!” I say accusatorily, jabbing my finger in his direction for emphasis, but he doesn’t take his gaze away from Alice.

“Nobody harbored _any_ sort of intent towards Bella,” He says, before his nose wrinkles a little. “Not violent ones, at least. But if they were able to hide from Alice, they might’ve been able to hide from me as well.”

I zone in on the most important part of his little speech.

“By non-violent ones, did you mean ones where they wanted to-“

“Yes,” Edward says, face contorting with immense discomfort. I shrug out of Esme’s hold and take a few steps closer to him, eyeing his face with what feels like manic intent, ripping past Jasper’s veneer of calm.

“Was it Carsyn? Was she thinking about me?” I ask, words tripping over themselves in their haste to get out of my mouth. But almost immediately, my hopes are dashed as he shakes his head, nose still wrinkled up, which I can’t help but feel a bit insulted by; imagining someone likes me shouldn’t be that nauseating.

“They were… distinctly male,” he says, and I groan, loud and prolonged. There went all hope that Carsyn could forgive me for ruining the rest of her Halloween.

“Okay,” I sigh, taking a few steps back. “Okay. Well, now we know that there was someone at the party who wanted to hurt me- _not_ in a sexy way- and they were gone when you came. Or they were there, and they had preter- pret- _supernatural_ abilities that let ‘em hide from you and Alice both. And also that Carsyn never wants to see me again.”

“Bella,” Rosalie says, and I blink slowly at the anger rising in her voice, like a tidal wave- steady and unyielding. “Are you _seriously_ more concerned with the idea that this- this _Carsyn_ still likes you than the fact that someone at that party wanted to murder you where you stood? That they might’ve been the same person who is _killing girls who look like you?”_

“Um…” I think about it for a sec. “I mean, yeah.”

Rosalie exclaims wordlessly, raising her hands in the air, before she storms back inside the house- not supernaturally fast, but pointedly humanlike, stomping her feet into the ground before slamming the door behind her.

“Uh… I better go check after her,” Emmett mutters. I watch him go by in a blur, feeling bewildered.

“Why is she angry?” I ask, feeling my eyes well up with fresh tears, and Esme rubs her hand comfortingly against my arm.

“It’s okay, Bella,” She murmurs. “We can talk more about it in the morning, when you’re a little less- inebriated.”

“Don’t be silly, Esme,” I say, blinking owlishly at her. The tears fall down my face, but I don’t mind; I feel so overheated that the cool sting of them down my cheeks feels more like a balm than Jasper’s artificial serenity, the last of which is quickly fading away. “You know I can’t get drunk. Because that’d be illegal.”

I hear a loud snort coming from my right. When I look over, Carlisle’s hand is clasped over his mouth, eyes comically wide- almost as large as Jasper and Edward’s as they gawk at him.

“Go run Bella a bath, please,” Carlisle says, voice muffled by the hand still over it.

* * *

I sit on the toilet while Esme draws me a bath.

The bathroom is _huge._ As drunk as I feel- especially now that I’m away from Jasper-, I’m still able to appreciate the insane amount of effort it took to renovate the bathroom in what’s probably the oldest house in all of Forks. It’s all marble floors and Jack-and-Jill sinks and a huge mirror that encompasses the entire leftmost wall.

“You guys don’t go to the bathroom, d’you?” I ask, kicking my feet idly as I watch her squeeze a bottle of shampoo into the tub, like I’m a baby. “So why d’you have a toilet?”

“It would be hard to explain why we didn’t need toilets to the renovators,” Esme says, back still turned to me. “And we do have guests sometimes- not very often, admittedly, but if they ask us where the bathroom is, it would be a little concerning that there wouldn’t be a toilet inside.”

“Does that mean you can hear them?” I ask curiously, voice dropping into a whisper. “Y’know- doing their _business_.”

Esme cranes her neck to look at me then. She’s smiling bemusedly.

“The walls are pretty thick, Bella,” she says, and it’s my turn to grin back.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Thick enough that it mutes most sounds,” she says. And then, as an afterthought, adds, “Most.”

I crack up at that, violently enough that I lose my grip on my laces. I stare blearily down at the boob that’s just popped out from the costume, which I have irrevocably sullied beyond what Jessica’s washer and dryer might’ve been able to fix.

“Here, Bella,” Esme says kindly, getting to her feet, and then she’s gently but firmly turning me around so she can undo the laces at the back of the costume. I haven’t been undressed since I was a kid, young enough that I couldn’t protest when Mom put me in tutus and frilly, scratchy things that I swore off by the time I hit first grade.

I lean into Esme’s touch, trying to fight off the inexplicable urge to cry for the fourth time that night, until the bathroom air hits my hot skin and I sigh with relief. Esme guides me into the tub, and I go willingly enough; it’s huge, big enough that I could probably swim laps in it, and my head lolls against the marble stand behind it as I sink into the water. It’s hotter than it should be, but I don’t say anything; I don’t want Esme to feel deterred from drawing me baths in the future.

Wait. What?

“Just holler if you need anything,” Esme murmurs, leaning over to brush a stray lock of hair out of my eyes. “Carlisle’s going to call your father, let him know that you’re staying over for the night.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I mumble unthinkingly. Esme’s hands still from where they’re framed around my face, but before I can stammer out an apology, a gentle kiss is being pressed against my forehead. It’s my turn to freeze. When I open my eyes, she’s gone, the bathroom door closed- unlocked- behind her.

I groan, leaning back against the tub. So far, I’ve been doing a good job not thinking about Carsyn, but now that I’m alone, I feel the familiar sting of self-loathing rushing up my throat. I don’t know why I’m so surprised- if anybody could manage to cock up their first kiss so spectacularly, it would be me.

I reach one soapy hand out of the water to poke at the marks she’d left on my throat, wincing when my finger prods at one particular bite mark just above my collarbone. Some perverse part of me is glad that Emmett and Rosalie had shown up when they did. From what I’d seen of myself in the mirror at the party, Carsyn had painted quite a picture on me- the reds vivid enough that I know they’ll be purple come morning. It made me feel pretty, even with my lips having been smeared with sick and my eyes bloodshot like I’d hit multiple blunts in a row. Like I was worthy of being claimed by her- by someone, period.

Sighing, I submerge myself deeper into the tub, so that only my eyes and nose are above water level. It’s still too hot for comfort, but the heat is a distraction from my thoughts. Taking a deep breath, I dunk the rest of my head beneath the water- and stay there. This, I think, is the closest I can get to being a fetus again- submerged in whatever fluid’s in a uterus, eyes squeezed shut so I know nothing but the heat and the darkness surrounding me.

There’s even the rude awakening of being forcibly removed from my mother’s uterus, as the same cool hands as before wrap around my shoulders and pull me from the warmth of the tub. I gasp for breath as my head breaks the water surface, arms flailing before finding handholds on either side of the tub.

This time, it’s Rosalie’s hands that are attached to my shoulders. She looks positively livid, nostrils flaring as she stares down at me with knitted brows. I’ve managed to douse the entire front of her shirt in water, and the fabric’s clinging to her skin, enough so that I can make out the lines of the wire bra she’s wearing beneath. I stare at her with an open mouth for what feels like an eternity, until she finally shakes her head, breaking out of whatever expletive-laced reverie she’s found herself in.

“Are you _trying_ to kill yourself?” She demands, her voice shrill and tight, and I find myself shaking my head like a Bobblehead, all quick and emphatic movements.

“No,” I say, my voice sounding incredibly small in juxtaposition, but my submissiveness doesn’t seem to calm her down much.

“Really?” She asks incredulously, lifting one perfect brow at me with practiced disbelief. “Because it sure as hell seems like you’re trying to drown yourself, Bella.”

“Rosalie,“ I begin tiredly, wiping water droplets away from my eyes, “just sto-“

“No,” she hisses, eyes flashing as she leans down so that her face is maybe a few inches away from mine. Something tells me I should probably be concerned by how quickly her eyes are darkening, but I don’t move an inch; even with her face contorting in anger, she’s never been physically closer to me than she is right now. “No, for once- _just_ once- you’re going to listen to me. You think you can do these things, Bella- you think you’re invincible, that you can just throw yourself into what-fucking-ever you want to- but I- _we-_ won’t always be there to protect you. What would’ve happened if Alice hadn’t sensed the danger in time, huh? And not just then, either- you think I forgot about that day in the woods? I know you don’t give a shit about what happens to you, but if we hadn’t intervened- if they hadn’t brought you back home-“

That’s when I do something really, really stupid. Using the handholds I have on either side of the tub, I hoist myself up and kiss her.

She reels back almost immediately, eyes huge. I feel my heartbeat begin to pick up in my chest, feel my pulse start to jump under my skin, the blood flood my cheeks- and then she’s gone, quick as a flash, the door slamming shut behind her. I drop back into the tub with a gasp, raising my shaking hand to my mouth.

What. The. Fuck.

I just kissed Rosalie Hale. I, Bella Swan, just kissed Rosalie Hale- and, for the second before she stumbled away, I’m pretty sure she kissed me back. My heartbeat’s audible to my own ears now; no matter how thick the walls are, I have no doubt that everyone in this house can hear it racing.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I whisper, clutching either side of my head in my hands. What the _fuck_ is wrong with me? First Carsyn, and now this? Am I just not able to react normally to things? Someone wants to kiss me, and I respond by puking on them- someone’s lecturing me, and I respond by kissing them?

I wish I still had my Razr. I need to call someone to pick me up- I need to get out of here, right the fuck now, before Rosalie can tell Emmett that I’ve just kissed her, and before Emmett can respond by giving me a pummeling that I most certainly deserve.

With shaky legs, I hoist myself out of the tub. I’m dripping everywhere, but I ignore it as I pull on the clothing that Esme left for me on the counter. Sweatpants approximately three times too big for me, a chic white sweater with a thread count that’s well into the mid-hundreds- I’m assuming she left me a combination of either hers, Alice’s, or Rosalie’s clothes to use as pajamas. I’d much rather crawl back into my angel costume, not matter how scratchy and dirty it’d feel against my wet skin, but I can’t find it anywhere. Esme must’ve taken it when I wasn’t looking.

My makeup hasn’t washed off entirely- it’s smudged on my face instead, all streaky black mascara and eyeliner down my cheeks and white eyeshadow that’s somehow managed to get into my eyebrows-, but I don’t waste time trying to scrub it off. Instead, I yank open the door and speed-walk down the hallway, trying to find a house phone before anyone can ask me what I’m doing.

No dice. Esme’s waiting for me at the foot of the staircase, her face contorted in maternal worry that makes me immediately turn my gaze to my bare feet.

“Are you alright, Bella? Rosalie just came running out of-“

“I need to go home,” I say hurriedly, feeling my fists clench at my sides. “Right now.”

“I thought you were staying here for the night,” Esme says, voice rising with confusion and something else I can’t quite put my finger on.

“I won’t be able to sleep unless it’s in my own bed,” I mumble, which is only partially true- I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep at all tonight, period.

“Bella,” Esme begins, voice switching into something soothing and reasonable, “you’re not thinking clearly. We still don’t know who wanted to hurt you at the party, and we don’t know if they can track you, either. We can’t protect you if you’re not here.”

“Yes, you can,” I whisper, still not looking at her. “You can watch over me and Charlie both back at the house.”

“Bella-“ Esme begins, arms automatically coming up around me, but they fall back to her sides as I wince back, steadfastly keeping my eyes on my feet.

“It’s okay, Mom,” says a voice from the corner of the room, and I automatically glance up. I feel my insides freeze as Emmett steps into view, face unreadable as he stares at us both. “I can take her.”

Esme wrings her hands with barely concealed agitation.

“I’d still much prefer you stay here, Bella,” she murmurs, but I don’t- can’t- take my eyes off Emmett, mind racing. Has Rosalie told him what happened already? Is he planning on ripping into me the second we step out of Esme’s sight?

Isn’t that what I wanted?

My silence must read as something like stubbornness, because Esme heaves a sigh.

“You’re not our prisoner, Bella,” she whispers, and her tone is more pained than I’ve ever heard it sound before. “You can come and go as you like. But I- I’d really like you to stay. If anything should happen to you…”

“I’ll keep a watch on the house,” Emmett promises in a low voice, arm coming up around Esme’s shoulders. She leans into his touch, and I stare blankly at the picture they make. Emmett’s probably not likely to kill me now- not when Esme’s made it clear that she has some misplaced sense of maternal affection for me-, but I’m sure he’s probably aware of the fact that I would put up with whatever he deemed fit in response to my laying one on his girlfriend/wife/literal soulmate.

It's with that thought that I follow him through the foyer and out the door. He picks me up without speaking when he sees my bare feet, but there’s a distance between my body and his chest that was decidedly not there when he did the same thing at the party. When I look back at the house over his shoulder, I can see Carlisle in the window of his study, staring at us for a beat before he lets the curtain drop, and I can’t help but grimace. It might just be my imagination, but he looked stern, disapproving. The very picture of fatherly disappointment. I can’t help but wonder why that might be as Emmett opens the car door with his pinky and sets me down inside.

He’s disconcertingly quiet as we drive. When I peek at him from the corner of my eye, his jaw is set, and I immediately look away. He might still be upset with me about the whole not-caring-whether-I-live-or-die-at-the-hands-of-a-serial-killer thing, or- or he’s upset about how I keep on forcing him and his family into immensely uncomfortable situations that they would ordinarily never find themselves in-

“What was Carsyn’s costume?” He asks, and I jump at the sound of his voice. His jaw is still clenched, eyes focused on the road, but something in his expression has decidedly shifted.

“Um… she was dressed up as Marilyn Monroe.”

“Seven Year Itch dress?” He asks quietly, and I nod, feeling my anxiety amp up another notch. I wish I could ask him outright if Rosalie said anything, but if she hadn’t, I don’t want him to ask what she might’ve said, and if she had-

If she had, I don’t know if I want to see his reaction.

“Figures,” he mutters, shaking his head with a snort. “Most cliché costume in the book.”

I have nothing to say to that, but I don’t have to; his expression is uncharacteristically dark and brooding the rest of the drive over, and I don’t doubt that anything I’d have to say would be met with vague, half-listening answers.

As he parks on the curb just outside the house, though, he grabs my hand before I can open the door.

“Hold on,” he says, tilting his head to the side. “Charlie’s sleeping. Poorly. You shouldn’t go in through the front.”

“So how am I supposed to get inside?” I ask, rubbing my eyes. The past several hours are starting to weigh on me, and I want nothing more than to collapse on my mattress and get up past noon tomorrow.

“Easy,” Emmett says. “We climb.”

“We” being him as I cling to his back, eyes squeezed tight as he climbs the fir tree out in the backyard and jumps the five feet or so away from my window, which, with one hand clinging to the sill, he eases open with his other. I unlatch my arms and legs from him, eager to crawl beneath my covers- and to put some distance between us. He still hasn’t said anything, but I don’t want to give him more opportunity soon.

I turn my back to him as I lay down, but it’s unnecessary; I conk out almost the second my skin touches the comforter. The last thing I hear is Emmett murmuring something unintelligible to me, and then I’m out like a light.

Until I’m not.

I can feel lips trailing down my neck. There’s a blonde head bent over my collarbone, and though my immediate thought is Carsyn, it’s two shades too light to be her Marilyn Monroe wig, and nine shades too light to be her sandy-colored hair. Whoever it is, they’re sucking a bruise that’s going to be difficult to hide unless I manage to wrangle up that turtleneck of Mom’s, stuck in the bottom of the box of her things that I’d hidden underneath my bed-

“Someone’s distracted,” says a voice from behind me, low and amused and strangely familiar, and it’s only then that I realize there’s another person in the room, pressed tightly to my back. The movement of his lips brushing against the nape of my neck sends a bodily shiver down my spine.

“I’m not,” I pant, feeling my skin break out into a light sweat. “Do- do what you were doing before.”

I can feel the blonde- whose face I still can’t see- smile against my skin as they move their face lower, towards my chest.

“Are we not enough for you, Bella?” They whisper, sultry as anything, but before I can respond, they’re nosing down the valley between my breasts.

“Oh, fuck,” I whisper, light-headed as I press my thighs together. That’s when the person behind me chuckles, angling their head so their cheek almost rests against my elbow. When I reluctantly look away from the blonde, another bodily shock shudders through me as my eyes make contact with Emmett’s.

“Hi,” he murmurs, and that’s when his fangs sink into my neck. My mouth opens into a silent scream, but it isn’t one of pain. I sag against him, just as Rosalie- or who I assume is Rosalie- moves her head downwards, lips brushing against the underside of my bare chest before she sinks her teeth into the skin of my breast.

I awake with a gasp, hands fisting the comforter as I force myself to sit up. I’m drenched in sweat despite the cool air coming in through the open window, where Emmett’s staring at me with huge eyes.

I jolt again, rubbing at my eyes, but this Emmett is very much real, straddling the windowsill as he stares at me. It might just be a trick of the light- or lack thereof-, but his eyes are darker than Rosalie’s were when I kissed her.

“You were calling my name,” he says. He still doesn’t move away from the window. “I thought you were having a nightmare.”

My mouth suddenly feels very dry.

“It wasn’t a nightmare,” I whisper, so low that he couldn’t have heard me if he didn’t have preternatural hearing. He sucks in a sharp breath through his nose, high and shaky. He hasn’t blinked once, and though I want to look away, I can’t; there’s something so compelling about him right now, coal-black eyes juxtaposed with the white marble of his face, emitting its own light in the darkness of my room.

“What was it, then?” He murmurs, voice impossibly low and gravelly, and I feel a frisson of heat lance through me.

“Come over here and I’ll tell you,” I say with courage that I know, immediately, isn’t my own, a result of the dream or the booze that I can still vaguely feel in my system. He lets out a pained noise, pinching the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb.

Something desperate rises in me then.

“Emmett,” I whisper, still breathing hard. “Please. I need you.”

I can see him hesitating, but then- almost reluctantly, as though he’s dragging his feet-, he sets his thigh on the other side of the window and walks over to the foot of my bed.

“Need me to do what?” He whispers, just as quietly. We stare at each other in the dark, and though I know, now, that his eyes have really and truly gone black as pitch, they’re strangely bright and reflective, as though covered with a glaze of tears that I know he can’t produce.

I use the last vestiges of my booze and/or wet dream-induced bravery to grab his hand and pull him closer to me. He obeys, as though he doesn’t have enough strength to push me through the wall if he so chooses, and when I lift myself to my knees so that we’re on eye-level- or as eye-level as we could possibly be-, he releases a shaky, shuddery breath that hits my face, sweet and enticing as honey.

And then, before I can kiss him, he kisses me.

His mouth crashes against mine with an almost violent fervor, and when I gasp, he takes the opportunity to lick a little at my parted lips. I cling to him, arms thrown tightly around his neck as he crushes the upper half of my body to his, tight enough that I know I’m going to bruise come morning. I find that I don’t really mind the prospect.

“I could smell her on you,” he groans quietly, and I freeze, unsure if he’s talking about Rosalie or Carsyn until he adds, raggedly, “that _human._ Her arousal- _your_ arousal-, and those bite marks- that’s one of the biggest things I miss about being human. Being able to give hickeys.”

As he speaks, he angles his face so that his nose and lips are pressed up against the bruises on my throat, kissing the skin there with a renewed urgency. I grab a fistful of his hair in response, pressing him even closer to me, and though I don’t intend on speaking for the rest of the night, the words come, almost unbidden, from my swollen mouth.

“I kissed Rosalie,” I admit, squeezing my eyes shut, and feel Emmett’s muscles tense up beneath my hands.

And then he says, “I know.”

My eyes fly open. I push him away a little, just enough so that I can see the expression on his face, which is almost boyishly sheepish.

“You _know?”_ I echo, and he smiles a little at my tone.

“You think Rosalie and I didn’t talk about this beforehand?” He asks, pulling me closer to him. I allow him to, but my mind is racing as he settles on my bed, pulling me onto his lap as he leans back against the wall. “Something that Alice told us was _bound_ to happen?”

My jaw drops open. “Alice _saw_ this?”

“Different iterations of this,” Emmett says, eyelids heavy as he thumbs my bottom lip. “You kissing me, you kissing Rosalie- Rosalie and I kissing _you_ … I’m mostly surprised about the order that it happened in, not that it happened. Rosalie was the one who was against it, not me. And that’s only because she has preconceived ideas about our, uh, condition, that doesn’t really allow for a sustainable relationship with a human.”

“And what about you?” I whisper, unsure if I want to know the answer. “What do you think?”

Emmett grins, and the effect takes my breath away.

“I think,” he says, moving his face closer to mine as he speaks, “that it is _perfectly_ sustainable.”

And though I’d like nothing more than for him to kiss me again, I’m rapidly sobering up, and the questions that are starting to rise in my throat feel just as urgent as the need for him to press his body as close to mine as possible.

“But- I thought you two were in a relationship,” I point, putting my hands on his shoulders as I sit back up on his thighs. He makes a disappointed noise in the back of his throat that I refuse to think of as adorable. “A _monogamous_ one.”

“We were,” He says, tone frustratingly simple as his hands settle on either side of my waist. “And were planning on it for a good, long while. And then you came around and screwed things up immeasurably. In the best way.”

He’s aiming for teasing, but his words make me bite my lip.

“I don’t want to come between you and Rosalie,” I say slowly, and hastily add, “in a bad way. In a way that wrecks your relationship.”

“Our relationship has survived for decades before you were even born,” he points out, and we both make a face at the implication. “You know what I mean, Bella. I honestly doubt anything could get between us by this point.”

“But you just said Rosalie was the one who was against it,” I mumble, looking away, and he sighs, thighs shifting under mine as he pulls me snug against him, so that my head is tucked under his chin.

“Not because of you, Bella,” He murmurs. “But because of her reaction to you. Your blood- it calls to her. You’re her singer, you know that.”

“I still don’t get what that means,” I grouch, attempting to look up at him, but his hand is clasping gently around the back of my neck, keeping my cheek pressed against his collarbone.

“It’s like Alice told you,” he says, stroking his fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck. “The blood of some humans sing to us. It’s why Rosalie had such a- a _melodramatic_ reaction to you, when the rest of us didn’t. Not that you don’t smell good to me, but, uh- okay, what’s your favorite food?”

“French onion soup,” I say immediately. Emmett’s laughter rumbles beneath me in response.

“Very fancy,” he teases, and I can feel myself color.

“Shut up,” I mumble, hiding my face in the crook of his neck. “It was the one recipe Mom didn’t screw up.”

“Okay, so, to me, you smell like, uh, chicken noodle soup. Still good, right? Nice to have on a hot day, all comforting and warm- but to Rosalie, you smell like the best French onion soup in the world. With cocaine sprinkled on top instead of cheese.”

“Is that why she was trying to so hard to get me expelled in the beginning?” I ask, wincing as I think back to the urine tests Principal McGowan is _still_ making me go through.

“It wasn’t because she hated you,” Emmett says, nodding in affirmation. “Actually, it was pretty much the opposite. She didn’t want to kill you.”

“I don’t get it,” I say, staring at where he’s entwined our hands together. “What changed between then and now?”

“You bled out on our living room floor, that’s what,” Emmett says, blunt as anything, and I cringe. “I was certain that we were going to have to hold a funeral service, but somehow, Rosalie managed to ignore the blood to save you. Which you should know is nothing short of _miraculous_. I didn’t think anyone other than Carlisle could have that kind of restraint, and he's been alive for ages. But she showed it that day, and it hasn’t stopped since. You still smell as good to her as the day you met, but she’s able to look past it now.”

We sit in silence for a while, thinking our respective thoughts.

“So where do I fit in?” I ask finally, and I hear, rather than see, Emmett’s smile.

“Between us, I should hope,” he says slyly, and I groan in response.

“I don’t know, Bella,” he continues, tone a little more serious. He shifts me on his lap so that we’re looking straight at each other. His eyes have lightened a little since he came into my room, but they’re still intensely dark and thoughtful as they bore into my face. “Where do you want it to go?”

“I don’t know,” I admit truthfully. “I never even had a boyfriend or girlfriend before, let alone one of each at the same time. Especially ones who are so-“

“Inhuman?” Emmett guesses, and I huff a laugh.

“That too, but I was going to say beautiful,” I say, dropping my eyes from his. “It makes me wonder what you see in me, when the two of you have each other.”

His fingers press against the underside of my chin, then, forcing me to look back up at him. His expression is almost unbearably tender.

“Would you think I’m being cheesy if I said I saw everything in you?” He asks quietly, and I know he means it well, and I know that it’s romantic, and I know that any other girl would basically be swooning in his arms right now- but the words cause me to tense up, bad enough that my shoulders nearly come up to my ears.

“You shouldn’t,” I hear myself say, voice flat as I clamber off his lap. “I’m- I’m not-“

“Not what?” Emmett murmurs, and I wince.

“Not well,” I finish in a whisper. “Rosalie was right. If Alice hadn’t seen me at the party- if she hadn’t seen me the day that I tried to kill myself- we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. The only reason why I’m able to deal with all of this-“ I wave my arms around to encompass what ‘this’ is- “is because I know that I like you and Rosalie way more than either of you like me.”

Emmett is silent for such a long time, I think, hysterically, that he’s fallen asleep. Or had a system reboot.

“How can you say that?” He finally asks, hurt blatant in his tone.

“I know she thought she was doing it for my own good,” I say woodenly, “but Rosalie still made me go through weeks of invasive fucking urine tests at school, Emmett- and _you_ didn’t stop her. And then, as if that weren’t enough, the two of you stole the last present my mom _ever_ gave me for- for shits and giggles. Because Rosalie felt that she had to ‘punish’ me for something I couldn’t even control. I know I like you guys way, _way_ more than you like me, because even though you did _all_ that shit, I still want to be with you.”

I feel myself growing angrier and angrier with each syllable that comes out of my mouth, nearly shaking with it as I stare at my fists, clenched in my lap.

“So don’t say you see ‘everything’ in me, because it isn’t true- and I don’t want it to be true. I don’t want to disappoint you when you look closer and see that the only reason you like me is because I’m still novel to you.”

“That _definitely_ isn’t true,” Emmett says, angry in his own way now. “I know we fucked up, Bella- and I haven’t tried to justify it, because there _is_ no justification for it-, and you can be as angry as you like at us for it, but don’t you dare say that the only reason either of us could want you is because you’re _new._ You are so much more than that, Bella, you-“

“Stop it, Emmett,” I whisper, resisting the urge to cover my hands with my ears like a little kid. “Stop it.”

But almost immediately, his anger and urgency seems to dissipate. With a sigh, he corrals me back against him, and though I know I should probably be twisting away from him and demand we see this through, I’m too drained to do anything more than slump against him, taking comfort in the huge expanse of his chest, the hand that begins running through my hair once more.

“We can talk about this more in the morning,” he murmurs comfortingly. “This is a three-person conversation, anyway.”

And I still have so many things to say to him- that for someone who for someone who was born when new Charlie Chaplin films were still coming out, he has a pretty liberal viewpoint of what romantic relationships should be like; that whatever relationship we could have would no doubt be fucked up by my genetic inability to sustain healthy, long-lasting relationships with others; that if we break up dramatically, I still want to be able to see Esme without it being awkward-, but instead, I say nothing, and allow myself to enjoy the rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek.

This time, when I dream, it’s of the ocean advancing and ebbing at my bare feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall i literally had to duck under heavy blankets again in 90 degree weather to write a KISSING scene oml

**Author's Note:**

> okay also yes i did steal bella's eulogy from bojack horseman and what about it


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